


waiting for the time to pass you by

by theprecursors



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: (mildly explicit sexual content?), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Graduate School, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Explicit Sexual Content, Slow Burn if you squint maybe possibly, Undefined Relationship, it's complicated - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-10-13 17:05:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 59,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10518093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprecursors/pseuds/theprecursors
Summary: John kisses just like he always has. With his hands wrapped right back in Lafayette’s shirt and his body pressing up against his. His mouth still tastes boozy, his kisses a little sloppy and edging on using his teeth against Lafayette’s lips.---After a certain age, you think that things will get easier. Summer has dragged on for years and Lafayette and Laurens are stuck in a perpetual casual-secret-almost-not completely... not dating.





	1. October I

**Author's Note:**

> Work title from "Stay" by Zedd & Alessia Cara
> 
> This is my first fic in a very.. very long time so. please be gentle with me. I'm not sure if i'll have any kind of update schedule or what have you but! i'm excited for it

The first snow comes in October, when they’re gathered around a usual table in a usual bar, singing Laurens his praises on making it another year. He drinks beer and smiles around the amber lip of the bottle, and mostly stares out into the street to watch the snow collect. Peggy says something to him, only him, and his smile blossoms into a laugh. He says something back and only grins when she coughs on her own drink. Her lips twist up behind her hand when the coughing subsides.

Someone nudges him. Then again, harder, a jabbing elbow against his bicep. “Earth to Lafayette, come in. You there, man?” Hercules snaps his fingers in Lafayette’s field of vision. Lafayette looks over, expectant. Confused. “You’re zoning hard,” Hercules states. Then pauses. “You want another?” he asks, gesturing to the empty bottle curled in Lafayette’s hand.

He pushes the bottle forward, to the centerpiece of emptied bottles and glasses forming around the napkin dispenser.

“I’ll take another,” Lafayette says as he leans back into his chair. Hercules goes to the bar, gets another drink for himself and the refill for Lafayette.

Alexander steals his seat. Alexander has this burning, idle energy – the man rarely sleeps, sustains himself on equal parts coffee and spite, and never tires. He leans all the way forward onto the table, lifting himself from the chair and pressing his palms against the table. Alexander is a little drunk. He points across to Laurens.

“ _You_ – birthday shots. Now.”

Laurens looks amused, his eyebrows pulling up and his smile, ever present, stretching to show his teeth. “Only if you do them with me, Ham.”

Hercules comes back, hands Lafayette his drink over Alexander’s shoulder. “I’ll buy one of Jack’s birthday shots,” he offers.

The table comes alive with the talk of shots. Laurens and Alexander are already counting on their fingers how many drinks they have to their names, factoring in how many more they can have before the night is through. Peggy stirs the ice in her drink with her straw and pulls Laurens’ beer away from him.

“No more beer with your liquor,” she tells him. “Stupid,” she says, and pushes him when he stands to go get his birthday shots with Alexander and Hercules.

He grins a shit-eating grin. “It’s only two shots. Twenty-two would overdo it.”

“Two _minimum,_ ” Alexander butts in. He turns, looking Lafayette squarely, his dark eyes alight. “You coming, Laf?” he asks like there’s choice involved.

They go, the four of them, and nothing ever changes. Each of their birthdays always comes down to this: the four of them looking down some number of shots and throwing them back in unison. Laurens chooses vodka for his shots and the bartender pours out eight, pushing them forward. He’s standing next to Lafayette, leaning a little on the bar. He only straightens when Hercules and Alexander take their shot glasses in the air. He clinks his glass against Lafayette’s.

“Bottom’s up,” with that smile before he throws it back. Lafayette swallows down the first shot, then the second. He wasn’t drunk before but will be soon.

Alexander goads Laurens and Hercules into taking another shot while Lafayette pays his tab. He’ll nurse the bottle of beer that Hercules brought him for the rest of the night. Bars are expensive. The two shots put him over what he intended to spend tonight, and he sighs as he tucks his debit card back into his wallet.

“I can’t believe you’re tucking in already,” Laurens says beside him, as he pushes his shot glass to get his fourth.

Alexander chimes in: “Yeah, lame,” but offers little else to the conversation.

“Bars are expensive.” Laurens rolls his eyes, unconvinced. He concedes: “Public intoxication is worse.”

Laurens laughs this time, and shakes his head. “Whatever, man.” And without asking, he pushes the remaining shot glass forward, asking the bartend for another. Lafayette watches, and waits for Laurens to offer it to him. “It’s on me. One more won’t make you sloppy. C’mon.”

He throws the shot back.

They have fourteen shots to their name. More than enough. The bartender moves on to other customers. Peggy and Eliza are still at the table when they return, shifted to sit side-by-side and organize the empties as they chat. They’re sharing sips from the beer that Peggy had pulled away from Laurens.

“Two shots, hm?” Eliza grins when Alexander sits next to her.

“Two _minimum_ ,” he repeats, and she laughs. Eliza is probably the best thing to ever happen to Alexander; she has just as good a head on her shoulders as him, with more impulse control and the ability to rein him in more frequently than most. He still shoots off at the mouth, champs the bit, pulls even as she or anyone else attempts to hold him back. They’re painfully in love, and soon dip their voices low and lean close to each other.

The rest of them have taken their seats wherever they could: Lafayette next to Peggy, Hercules across from Alexander, and Laurens between them. Herc slides Lafayette’s beer back towards him. Laurens intercepts it, smiling around the lip of the bottle as he brings it to his mouth.

He takes a long drink before handing it off. “I bought you a shot,” he waves off Laf’s lingering gaze.

“You are lucky it’s your birthday,” he counters, though it’s not like he really minds. Laurens laughs.

“Sure, sure,” he says. “But other than the momentous occasion of my birthday – we have a bigger issue at hand. What are we doing for Halloween?” 

Peggy, after she finishes Laurens’s beer, grins. “Funny you should ask. Me and ‘Liza are still trying to get a headcount for that party. BYOB and costumes required, folks.” She stretches forward, pushing the empty to the collection of bottles at the center of the table. “I mean, we haven’t invited too many people yet, but you guys are always on our VIP list.”

“Tipsy Tuesday making a comeback?” Laurens grins, nudges Hercules with his bony elbow.

Lafayette feels woozy from just the reminder. In college, the lot of them had spent more time day drinking than they had studying in preparation for their exams. Cheap spirits and cheaper beer stashed in their dorm room mini-fridges led to them circled up, sitting cross-legged on the tile floors of their dorms, sharing stories and pouring each other shots.

“Yo, you think we should invite Aaron?”

“Burr?” Alexander comes alive. He looks, for a moment, like he’s about to leap across the table and snap the suggestion right out of the air.

Hercules rolls his eyes. “For old time’s sake, come on Ham. It’s not like you don’t see him five days a week already.”

“Burr?” he only repeats, but with more emphasis and a sense of disbelief that maybe he hadn’t properly portrayed the first time.

Aaron Burr had joined them once. He had been roommates with Laurens their freshman year, and had been promptly goaded into loosening up and staying for at least one drink, man, by Laurens before he abandoned their stuffy dorm room for the air conditioned library. Even with the windows opened wide and a box fan stuck in one of them, set on high, it never seemed to be cool enough until summer ebbed into fall.

It’s different, now, with out-of-season snow and a cold front to wipe out the blistering heat they’d had just weeks ago. Lafayette realizes he should have brought a coat.

“Burr’s not that bad, Ham,” Laurens claims through the daggers that Alexander shoots him over the table. He turns his gaze to Peggy. “You gonna invite him, Pegs?”

She glances over at Eliza, shrugs her shoulders. “We’ll think about it.”

Alexander groans. Lafayette thinks it’s because, while Aaron and Alexander are typically of similar schools of thought, Aaron is one of the only people quick enough on his feet to stand a chance in disagreeing with Alexander.

He looks over at Eliza. “Are you really going to think about it?”

She only nods. Alexander groans again and sinks forward, putting his head in his arms. Eliza laughs at him and pats his shoulder. “You’ll live.”

They spend the rest of the night trying to figure out costumes. Coordinating costumes is easier said than done – none of them are willing (or especially motivated) to shell out money for cheaply-made-yet-outrageously-overpriced costume, but pulling one together last minute is just as bad. At the end of the night, which only comes when Eliza decides that she’s going to drag Alexander home, they’ve only come to a consensus that Hercules needs to come up with a different costume – that his namesake isn’t going to cut it this year.

They chorus their goodbyes to Eliza and Alexander.

“I hope they’re going to his place,” Peggy mutters as she watches them walk through the window. Eliza grins with all her teeth, and waves at them with her fingers as they pass by. She’s holding Alexander’s hand, and swings their arms as they round the corner at the end of the street.

Lafayette finishes the last of his beer, slides the empty forward. Laurens’s hand weighs on his shoulder. “When do you wanna get out of here, man?”

He pauses for a moment, looks forward. “Um. Soon?”

They’ve been rooming together since the summer. When his lease ended, Laurens slept on Laf’s couch until his roommate moved upstate, for grad school at Cornell, and took up the other half of the lease. The lot of them have spent the past few years in and out of roommates, occasionally shacking up together; living in the city during your twenties has that sense of impermanence. It feels like more of a routine when they leave together, come home around the same time, spend long hours stretching their papers across their kitchen table and quizzing each other on material.

He laughs, claps Lafayette on the shoulder. “Alright,” he offers before sliding out of his seat and heading to the bar to pay his tab.

Peggy leans forward, resting her jaw in the palm of her hand. She smiles knowingly at Lafayette, then looks at Hercules. She crosses her legs at the knee and her smile grows before she speaks. “So, how’s it rooming with Jack?”

Lafayette wishes he’d saved the last of his beer. “Fine. Just the same as. as rooming with anyone,” he pauses, looking squarely at the table before shifting to look back at Peggy. “Why do you ask?”

She shrugs, stirs the ice left in her glass. “Just wondering. I know that Jack was tired of living in that studio, y’know? It must be weird, for him, living with someone again.”

“I think that he’s fine.”

“Yeah, he’s fine. He likes living with you,” Peggy tells him as spins her straw between her fingers. “For as much time as he spends with Ham, I think that he likes you more,” she adds, pointing at him with the straw. She winks.

And then laughs fully, covering her smile with the back of her hand, at the expression that washes over Lafayette’s expression. It fades when Hercules nudges his arm with the knuckles of his fist.

“Don’t let Ham know, yeah?” he jokes.

“Don’t let Ham know what?” Laurens asks when he comes back. He looks between the three of them, resting his hands down on the back of the chair he’d emptied.

“Big surprise,” Peggy beams. “Real hush-hush. Need to know basis.” She laughs again, the same way she’d laughed at Lafayette, when Laurens pouts at her. “Oh come on Jack, you know better than anyone that you can’t keep a secret.”

He makes a face at her, frowns more. “I can keep a secret,” he claims, then leans down. “You’ll tell me, right, Laf?”

“No, because he, unlike you, can keep a secret.” Peggy interrupts.

“Sure, sure,” he smiles, and pulls on the back of Lafayette’s chair. “Let’s get going. Catch you guys later.”

He grins, and pulls Lafayette’s chair out completely. They say their goodbyes and leave the bar together, going opposite of the way that Alexander and Eliza had. It’s still snowing when they get out; it’s not cold enough for the flakes to stick or collect on the ground, but they gather in their hair and across their shoulders. Lafayette crosses his arms, sticks his hands under his biceps to keep his fingers warm.

“You wanna hail a cab?”

“It’s a ten minute walk.”

“So that’s a no.”

John waits until they’re a few blocks away from the bar before he brushes shoulders with Lafayette, smiles wide and bright at him. He slides one hand over his back, finds his hand under his arm.

“You hate the cold.”

Lafayette smiles. “You’re drunk enough to keep warm.”

The alcohol has set in, leaving a warm, floaty drunkenness in its wake, even in Lafayette. Laurens is drunk enough to stumble and lean on Lafayette for stability. They walk the rest of the way like this, Laurens leaning and Lafayette leading him back to their apartment.

Once their door is open, Laurens pulls him in by the shirt, grinning wickedly and backing his way until he’s standing against the couch. “You know it’s still my birthday,” he says.

Lafayette pulls away just to lock the door, but doesn’t reapproach. “You’re drunk.”

“Sure.” He closes the distance instead, smoothing his hands over the wrinkles he’d left in Lafayette’s shirt. “But it isn’t my birthday tomorrow.” He pulls on Lafayette’s hands, puts them on his waist.

John kisses just like he always has. With his hands wrapped right back in Lafayette’s shirt and his body pressing up against his. His mouth still tastes boozy, his kisses a little sloppy and edging on using his teeth against Lafayette’s lips. He’d had enough foresight to wear a jacket out to his birthday celebration, and removes his hands from Lafayette’s shirt just long enough to pull down the zipper and shrug off the coat, letting it drop to the floor.

When Lafayette pulls back, hesitancy budding in his expression and his teeth worrying at his lower lip, John moves down his jaw and kisses along one of the tendons of his neck.

“Last time –” he starts.

“It’s always the last time,” John interrupts. He lifts his head to look Lafayette in the eye. “Do you ever want it to be the last time?” he’d never ask this sober; he’d never be this forward sober. But he doesn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t – I – I saw you, watching me, earlier. Laf.” He smooths his hands down his sides. “Gil, come on.”

Lafayette puts his hands on John’s hips, his thumbs inching under the hem of his shirt. It’s never the last time. John’s hands slide up his shirt, one resting on his shoulder and the other curling around the back of his neck, below his hairline, thumb pressed against his jaw, moving with the grain of his stubble.

One of them starts the kiss again. Softer, slower, less drunk-sloppy. Lafayette rests his forehead against John’s, tries to listen when he whispers against his lips, against his skin when his attention draws elsewhere. He’s pulled first by the shirt, again, then by the arm and by the wrist. All the way to John's room, door left open behind them.

Lafayette wakes up to the smell of coffee and the sound of rain. John is sitting in his underwear, one leg crossed under him and the sheets pooled over his lap. He’s drinking coffee out of his favorite mug, the one that Peggy had painted for him a few birthdays ago, covered with big yellow sunflowers and squiggles and dots following the curve of the handle. He presses his fingers against the small of John’s back as he sits him.

“Morning,” he smiles, puts his hand on Lafayette’s thigh when he sits up.

He slides his hand around his back, leaning close once he’s upright, steals his mug and a swig of his coffee. Makes a face.

“I don’t know how you drink that,” he says, hands the mug back to him. Kisses his bare shoulder.

“Three sugars and cream. There’s more coffee in the pot, if you want.”

“Eventually.”

John leans into him. The rain fills their silence. Lafayette noses against his neck, presses chaste kisses against his skin.

“Gil.” It sounds like a warning. He’s quiet, his tone edging into tension, but he doesn’t move.

“Yes?” he refrains from sighing, doesn’t move either.

John rests the mug on his knee as he turns to face him. He looks like he’s going to say something. Instead, he kisses him – gentle, close-mouthed, and pulls away before Lafayette can kiss him back. A strange expression pulls at his face, then disappears. Stays in his eyes.

“You sure you don’t want coffee?” he asks. This time Lafayette does sigh.

“Sure.”

“Cream, no sugar?”

He nods. John kisses him again when he gets out of bed, leaves his mug on the table by the bed. It’s different.

 


	2. October II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forget the awkward morning after, the entire day is just off-beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote most of this while listening to emotion by carly rae jepsen
> 
> (my apologies for the sporadic updating i'm a full time student and work part time so i just kind of get to it when i get to it. so! no real update schedule as of yet but i do fully intend to finish this..whenever that may happen)
> 
> (i am also! trying to just let the story fall as it will and let the characters kind of direct it - this chapter was meant to feature a parallel/flashback segment, but that will be postponed for a chapter or two. hopefully it will help to shed some light on the general. state. of laurens and lafayette's relationship ..thing)
> 
> (so anyway! thank you if you are here and reading this and i hope your day has treated you well)

The rain continues through the morning; the bitter cold has let up enough for the snow to melt to slush and standing water in the cracks of sidewalks and potholes in the street. They don’t leave John’s bed all morning; they stay, drink their coffee, leave the empty mugs on the bedside table. They have quiet conversation, idle and shallow. Neither of them talk about the night before. Neither of them like that kind of talk – the kind of talk that puts shit on heat, boils things to the surface.

John pieces together what he remembers from the bar, laughs when Lafayette wonders at his ability to avoid a hangover no matter how much he drinks. Lafayette’s eyes ache, his temples throb, but his hangover stops there, far from any debilitation.

“What was the secret?” John asks. He’s propped up by the pillows and under Lafayette’s arm, blankets tugged up over his stomach. He was holding Laf’s hand, earlier, tracing the lines of his palm and the shadows of the veins on the back of his hand.

“Hm?”

“The _secret_ ,” he repeats. “What you can’t tell Ham. Or me.” No light of recognition plays into Lafayette’s eyes. John rolls his. “Maybe you are as good a secret keeper as Pegs says.”

When he looks back to the windows, he remembers. _I think he likes you more._ Still, he doesn’t know quite what she meant by it. Peggy does that, speaks like her words are sagely, with her tones wistful, her smiles close-lipped and followed by one of her big laughs. “Maybe,” he agrees. Sounds distant. Traces his fingers over John’s shoulder.

The rain picks up and sounds against the windowpanes, filling their silences again. Lafayette watches the seconds and minutes count by on John’s alarm clock. Lazy Sundays only make him feel unproductive now. Law school is a heavier work load than undergrad had been; he could skim through readings and talk his way through the rest then, but now? It’s hell and a half. Alexander, force of nature that he is, breezes through case files and studies, highlighting and annotating like the wind. He sends periodic texts Lafayette’s way to pick his brain regarding the classes they share, tells him that he thinks too much and that’s why it takes him so long to get through the material.

Laurens stretches his arms out in front of him, laces his fingers and pushes them out until his knuckles crack. He rolls his shoulders until they pop. Lafayette winces at the sound, and again when he cracks his neck. Laurens sighs and relaxes back against the pillows, loosened with the pressure out of his joints.

“We should get up.” He finally breaks the silence, but stays where he is. Lafayette doesn’t move, either. “It’s almost noon,” he points out. Sounds more like he’s trying to will himself up and out of bed than to convince Lafayette that it’s time for their morning to start.

Lafayette moves his arm from around John’s shoulders, nudges his side with one hand. “Get up, then,” he says.

Eventually, they both do. Lafayette gets the first shower and Jack takes their dirty mugs to the kitchen and washes them in the sink, leaves them out to dry on the counter. He complains later that there wasn’t enough hot water and is met with a reminder that the hot water always runs out, that showers can’t be both scalding and long. He sighs, long and heavy and exaggerated for dramatics, before he retreats to his room to get dressed.

Lafayette is making lunch. Breakfast. Brunch. Noon creeps closer, but he uses the excuse that it’s still morning to scramble eggs and fry them alongside halved cherry tomatoes and the last of the bacon he found in the fridge. He puts on a fresh pot of coffee, refills the mugs that John had washed earlier.

“Aw, you made me breakfast?” Laurens grins when he walks into the kitchen. He’s in the middle of pulling his hair back –a wet, thick mess of curls that he manages to slick back into a bun.

“I made _me_ breakfast.” Lafayette hands him the other mug of coffee: cream, three sugars. He made enough for both of them, knowing that John would eat off his plate anyway. When Lafayette’s back is turned, putting the creamer back in the fridge, John steals a strip of bacon off of the frying pan, manages not to burn the tips of his fingers in the hot oil and fat.

He’s met with deadpan, forced annoyance. Maybe real annoyance. “Didn’t your mother teach you manners?”

“Not well enough.” He shrugs, talks around the bacon, gets a plate for Lafayette. He sits at their kitchen table with his coffee and his phone, finishes his bacon when Lafayette sits across from him, puts a fork in front of him and the filled plate between them.

“Pegs wants to meet up at the library later,” he says. “She’s freaked about the exam we have coming up,” he continues, but rolls his eyes and picks up the fork, pokes at one of the tomato halves. “Don’t know why. She’s crazy smart, right? Probably top of our class.” Lafayette only nods, listens to him talk and talk. Eventually, he gets back to his point. “ _Anyway_. You wanna come with?”

“To the library?”

“Yeah,” John shrugs. “I mean. Just figured you needed to study, too. We might be annoying. Nevermind.” He looks down, at his coffee. Lafayette can see the remnants of that strange expression pulling at him again, and it only lasts a second again, before his phone comes to life with an incoming text message.

“No – I would not – I’ll come.” He tries to focus on their breakfast, let the awkward tension between them fade. Mornings after aren’t usually like this, and Lafayette wonders what’s exactly gotten into Laurens, but rather than asking he mulls over his coffee.

“Okay, cool. Cool.” John doesn’t look up from his phone as his thumbs type out a text. He seems anxious for the tension to fade, too, and stabs a tomato with his fork, puts it in his mouth. Remembers how much he hates tomatoes and makes a face. Lafayette laughs at him. They finish breakfast, their coffees, do the dishes.

When they meet up with Peggy, she’s as frazzled as John had described she’d be. She has her hair mostly pulled up in a bun with a pencil sticking out of it, she has a textbook open next to her laptop and papers spread across the table in front of her. There are three cups next to her – two with only ice and the remnants of coffee, the last half full.

“I’ve been _waiting_ ,” she points an accusatory pen tip first at Laurens, then at Lafayette. Narrows her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re so calm about this. It’s the first big exam of the quarter and we are not prepared!” she drops the pen, likely for effect. “You know,” she continues, the drama lost from her voice, as they take seats. “You’re really lucky I let you copy my study sheets.” Laurens laughs at her.

Quickly, they fade into quiet studying. Lafayette focuses on getting through his stack of case studies and academic papers while Laurens and Peggy go through symptoms and ailments of the body and a whole slew of things that would go over his head if he was paying attention to them. He’d never pursued further than the basic chemistry class he’d been required to take as part of the scientific literacy component of undergraduate curriculum. He presses the capped end of his highlighter against his chin as he reads, occasionally leaning forward to mark a passage or to get his pen and take notes in the margins. He’s finishing writing his thoughts on the proceedings of the case example when he tunes back into Laurens and Peggy’s conversation.

“…and I don’t even know why they always have to come back to our place.” He can hear Peggy rolling her eyes from her tone. “You know what I did when I got home? I helped Alex puke in _my_ bathroom while ‘Liza got him some water. I swear, every year someone pukes on your birthday. It must be your charm.”

Laurens sticks his tongue out at her. His hair has dried since his shower, puffed out and curled as much as it can while still pulled back. He’s sitting with one leg drawn up, one arm crossed over his chest and hand stuck under the cut collar of his sweatshirt, fingers working a knot out of the muscle of his shoulder. He clicks his pen as he looks down at his notes, smiles when he says that he needs to remember to stick that in Ham’s face next time he sees him.

“What did you do after you left?”

Lafayette catches himself watching. Drops his gaze. Crosses out some of the words that became too illegible to read and focuses on rewriting them as neatly as he can, each movement of his pen methodical. He can feel eyes on him, won’t look to see whether it’s Peggy or John.

“We went home. No one puked in our bathroom, so, I’d say it was better than your night,” John teases. But he doesn’t mention anything else, just bolsters the conversation. Lafayette can see him grinning out of the corner of his eye, still doesn’t look up, trails his sentence on and tries to piece it to the next reading he has assigned for his class.

He and John are – something that he can’t put a name on. They’ve never needed to. Rather, they’ve never had that discussion or crossed that bridge. Neither of them like that kind of talk.

“Maybe you should take Ham’s drunk ass home next time. He can puke in your sink and take a nap on your bathmat.”

Laurens tips his head back when he laughs fully. “Maybe we will. Next year.”

He hovers on that word: we, implying that they will still be a unit in a year’s time. Takes the time to finally look up at them, at Laurens’s grin and at the annoyance that still tugs at Peggy’s expression. “Maybe _you_ will,” he corrects, making evident the fact that he’s been listening the whole time.

The grin falters. Peggy laughs.

“Maybe I will,” he bounces back.

“Maybe Alexander will learn how to handle his liquor,” Lafayette says, offhand, but the delivery causes Peggy to burst out in her full-bellied laugh. She covers her mouth with her hands, dissolves into giggles with her face hidden against her open textbook.

She’s still laughing when she straightens, more composed with the occasional laugh coming through. “Eliza said the _exact_ same thing last night. Same expression and everything. Oh, god,” she wipes a laugh-tear from her eye. “God, Laf, if you had seen her face – or yours – you’d know why this is so funny – ” she doesn’t finish her sentence, caught up in her laughter again. When she composes herself again, she looks straight at him. “She misses you, you know. Says she never sees you enough, ever since you and Ham stopped studying together all the time.”

“Yes… Since Alexander took up the teaching assistant position, most of his studying is much later. When I am asleep. Yet,” he adds a great sigh, “that doesn’t seem to stop him from sending me ten or more texts asking for my thoughts, or giving his own.” This time, both Jack and Peggy laugh. “I do miss her, too.”

Eliza Schuyler, saint of a woman. She had spent three and a half years working overseas with the peace corps before coming back to the city to start work on her degree. _Social work, or possibly family law,_ she’s mused to Laf before. She had folded perfectly into their group, having accompanied Peggy once to – something, somewhere – to meet the lot of them.

He’d always liked her.

“You’re coming to the party, right? We’re trying to convince Angelica to give herself a break for once and come over. The whole gang would be back together!” When Lafayette doesn’t immediately respond, she turns to Laurens. “Tell me he’s coming. Right? You’ll make him, right?”

Lafayette looks up at that, watches them. Watches Laurens falter, stumble over his thoughts as he tries to get a sentence out. Watches him laugh awkwardly.

“Yeah, Pegs, we’re coming,” he manages, pushing her with his forearm. “Cool it.”

She smiles a close-lipped smile Lafayette’s way.

“Are you done copying that, yet?” she asks Laurens impatiently, tugging at the paper under his elbow. “I need it just as much as you do.”

Lafayette narrows his eyes at her once she’s turned her attention away from him. Feels like she knows something he doesn’t. In a way, he always feels like this – with the way she acts like she knows everything about everyone. Because she just might.

He tries to focus on his work and ignore their bickering over each other’s notes, ignore the malaise that’s settled in his stomach. He manages to get through most of his second reading when Peggy announces she’s going to get more coffee, offers to buy them each something, writes their orders on an index card before she leaves. Lafayette is silent, Laurens is whispering to himself under his breath as he skims a study guide.

“Did you tell her?” Laf asks suddenly, before he’s even thought about asking, accusatory without meaning to be.

He isn’t sure if they are something kept secret, or if they are just something that they aren’t telling anyone.

“What?” John looks up, brows furrowed. Some of his hair has fallen out of its tie, stays in his face when he looks up. He pushes it behind his ear. Lafayette doesn’t have an answer. “Tell her what, Gil?”

Lafayette clicks his pen, puts all his focus into writing deliberately as he tries to remember how to spell a word.

“Lafayette.” Laurens just wants to know, now. Lafayette knows him, knows the difference between his piqued curiosity and the actual desire to talk something through.

“Nevermind, obviously you haven’t.” Exasperation bleeds through, though it’s not meant to be in John’s direction.

“ _Nevermind?_ Whatever.” He pauses, waits to see if his sharp tone will pull it out of Lafayette. When it doesn’t, he sighs. “Alright. Nevermind.”

Lafayette keeps his gaze trained pointedly on his paper, though he can’t focus it enough to read. John is staring him down, gaze demanding.

“Why won’t you just tell me?” he won’t drop the subject, or can’t.

“I have to go to the bathroom. Excuse me.” The veil of his excuse is non-existent. He knows this. He leaves before John can call him out on it.

“You are ridiculous,” John tries anyway, voice after him.

Lafayette takes a quick pace, rounding the corner, following a trail of bookshelves to the bathroom. It’s empty, giving him the small solace of silence to splash cold water on his face, stare himself down in the mirror, pull his hair out of his face. So he can ask himself what the fuck he was thinking, and know that he wasn’t thinking at all.

Ridiculous is a good word, an accurate word. If Peggy knows, should it matter? Yet, his stomach still sinks with the weight of it, because it does, whether it should or shouldn’t. It could matter.

Someone else enters the bathroom, breaking the quiet. Lafayette only pauses to dry his hands before leaving. Around the corner, he can see John has returned to studying, leaning forward without any hair in his face.  He must have retied it after Lafayette left.

Peggy’s voice carries farther than Jack’s.

“Where did Laf go?” “Is he okay?”

Deep breath. His contingency is sending a text message to Hercules, a casual inquiry of his plans for the day, before he approaches their table.

“There you are!” Peggy offers his coffee to him, but he’s already working to quickly put his things away. Though Laurens is purposefully not looking at him, his words ring in the air. He knows that they won’t talk about this later. “Where are you going?” she asks, frown in her voice.

“I have a paper to write. I forgot about it, and did not bring my laptop.”

It’s only a half-lie: he does have a paper, always has some paper to write, but the one in question isn’t due for another two weeks and there’s no reason for him to leave to complete it. Lafayette fails to mention its due date.

“Oh, okay,” she half-believes him. Grabs his arm before he tries to skirt past Laurens. “Don’t forget your coffee,” she says as she pushes it into his free hand. He thanks her, genuinely, before he leaves.

“I thought that you said he was okay,” her voice carries as he pushes the door to the stairs open. Before Hercules can respond to his message, Lafayette is already planning on heading his way when he exits the library.


	3. October III / July 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> History, inevitably, will repeat and perpetuate itself. Years later, you look back and don't question why you are where you are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this (long!) chapter largely involves mom friend/confidant hercules, and the flashback that shows (the aftermath) of what sparked john and laf's whole messy relationship (it's not 100% clear and isn't especially meant to be, but the flashback is placed in the summer between the gang's sophomore and junior years of undergrad, approximately three years before the present in the verse)
> 
> * again apologies for the sporadic / few and far between updates - finals are upon me! but as of may 20, i'll be free of the spring semester & hopefully on a more regular update schedule

Hercules lives in one of the looming, old brick buildings in the city. The ground floor was renovated into a store front when the building was bought out by a real estate company, leaving the residential entrance before the shop’s door a cramped intersection after two-steps up off the street. Lafayette presses the intercom button for Hercules’s apartment, holds it down so the bell will drone on until he answers.

“ _Yo._ ” His voice is garbled through the old speakers, laced with static.

“It’s me. Come let me in. Did you get my text?”

“ _All six of them._ ” Hercules laughs. “ _I’ll be down in a sec._ ”

Lafayette hears his footsteps as he comes down the staircases, greets him with a smile when Herc pushes the door open.

“You’re ridiculous, man.”

“You’re not the first to tell me that today.”

They take the stairs back up, three flights until they come to Herc’s hallway, then to the end for his door. It’s a nice place – hardwood floors, an exposed brick wall lined with the original windows, new drywall, fresh paint. The windows overlook the alley behind the building. Herc brightens it with potted plants sitting around the windowsills, most low-maintenance house plants, some that flower and smell nice.

“So, what’s up?” Hercules makes his way back to his couch, where his laptop sits open. He sits down, gets back to work, looks at Lafayette over the edge of his screen, expectant. Lafayette pulls his bag over his shoulder, sets it down before he sits down in the chair across from Hercules. Puts his feet up. Heaves a great sigh when he leans back into the cushion. Hercules snickers. “Yeah? Tell me about it.”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Lafayette laments. He looks up at the ceiling, replaying the events that had transpired in the library. Passes his actions from palm to palm, trying to figure out what exactly had possessed him to accuse Laurens in the way that he had. “I’ll have to deal with it later. Tonight.”

“Something going on at home?” Hercules pins it down too quickly for Lafayette’s liking. He falters, tries to come up with a convincing lie as he shakes his head.

“No, no.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Hercules looks on at him, unconvinced, skeptical. Lafayette shifts uncomfortably under the gaze, pulls the throw pillow out from behind him and hugs it against his torso. “It’s not like that,” he insists, gesturing with one hand.

Hercules might know. He has known, before. Lafayette isn’t sure if he still knows, if his assumption is based in the history he knows, or the fact that inevitably, roommates will butt heads. Lafayette thinks back to the bar, Laurens’s birthday, and how Hercules had been on the same page as Peggy in talking about John’s feelings towards him.

“You can just tell me, man.”

He doesn’t think about John’s birthday anymore.

“I know that. I would. If there was. If there was anything to tell.”

The silence before Hercules speaks again holds for as long as he sustains his doubt and his gaze. “You’re a terrible liar.” Lafayette opens his mouth to protest, assert that he isn’t lying. “ _Terrible_ ,” Hercules repeats before the assertion can be made.

Lafayette shuts his mouth. Hugs the pillow. Looks out the window, back to Hercules.

“Things are okay,” he says. “With Jack and I. Things are fine.” He watches Hercules raise his eyebrows and sighs. “Not that we – I mean. We didn’t… There’s no reason for things to not be fine. As I said, we enjoy living together. Each other’s company.”

Hercules laughs at him, shakes his head when Lafayette keeps on talking, making half-excuses and unfinished sentences. “I’m sure you do,” he says when his laughter subsides. “I’m not judging. I’m sure you guys aren’t fighting or anything.” Lafayette narrows his eyes at him.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re close, that’s all.”

“We are. I do not think that’s what you mean.”

“Laf, man. I’m not looking to pull anything out of you. All I’m sayin’ is that if there _is_ something – and I’m not saying that there is. You can talk to me.”

“I already said – ”

“I _know_. Just something to think about.”

Lafayette’s brow furrows and he worries his lip. Hercules is a good friend, a good confidant.

“I know,” he replies, after a while of silence. “That I can talk to you. I know that.”

“Good. Don’t forget it.”

\---

July the Fourth was his favorite holiday. Mostly for the summer festivities, the fireworks, the one excuse a year to wear the garish, excessively patriotic cut-off t-shirt Alexander had bought him as a gag gift last winter. This year they’re half in limbo and half finally feeling like adults. Paying their own rent, working full work weeks and odd jobs to make ends meet. Alexander managed to land an internship – _paid_ – for the summer, and spends too much of his time in a suit, sweating on the subway or in the city as he runs errands for a firm in Manhattan. Lafayette has been doing work that a paralegal would. Organizing papers and case files, making the material and contracts easily accessible for lawyers and their clients.

So far, he doesn’t feel any closer to a particularly stellar letter of recommendation, but has at any time three or more paper cuts on his right index finger. Paperwork will surely be the death of him.

If the heat isn’t the death of him first.

“When are you getting the air unit?” he calls to Hercules.

Hercules moved into a two-bedroom apartment with a buddy of his. Laf doesn’t know him well. He’s older, has a full time job and excuses himself to his room early. Despite the holiday, he isn’t home, leaving the entire space to Lafayette and Hercules.

“What?”

“I said, _when_ are you getting the air unit? Honestly, how you manage to not hear me across such a small area is astound – ”

“Why are you on the floor, man?”

“The floor is cooler than the couch.” Lafayette turns his body only to look where Hercules’s voice had come from. He is currently lying on the floor, shoulders and lumbar to the hardwood, his legs bent at the knee and feet propped up on the couch. “I think it’s good for my back,” he says as he sits up, dropping his legs and turning to either side to release some of the pressure on his spine. Sits with his back against the couch. “You swear by that chiropractor, but I do not think it was helpful.”

“You gotta keep going back to get realigned,” Hercules explains. He sits on his couch, two beers in hand. Hands the unopened one to Lafayette.

“With what money? I only went the first time because it was free – and you referred me.”

Hercules shrugs. “Just saying.”

Lafayette ties his hair back, gets it off his neck, before he opens the beer. He crosses his legs, looks up at Hercules.

“I’m surprised you have time off today. Ham’s still working.”

“He chose to.” Lafayette punctuates his sentence with drinking from his beer. A look of disbelief comes over Hercules’s expression. Doubtful, always. “He did! The man is insane, I tell you.” Hercules laughs. “I think, however, he is just trying to get into the good graces of the office people. Work on a holiday, get everything in order, make things efficient and pretty tomorrow.”

Hercules snorts. “Ham? Pretty? Tomorrow? You realize he’ll be drinking his weight in alcohol tonight and ruining his morning, right?”

“Perhaps he’ll learn how to moderate his liquor. Or to handle it.”

Hercules agrees, adds a comment out of jest. They both go quiet for a while, though, when Lafayette only responds with a smile. Hercules takes to pushing music through his speakers – all of his music is chill, sort of electronic, fades into the background. Mood music, good music. Lafayette had been thinking earlier, when he’d been lying on the floor and watching the shadows of clouds pass through those of the blinds on the ceiling. Thinking hard about something. And he goes back to thinking hard about something, hand curled around aluminum, brows furrowed just slightly. Herc asks him something, but he meets the question without response. He asks again, pushes his knuckles against Lafayette’s shoulder, pulling him back.

“Earth to Lafayette? Hello?”

“Hm?” Lafayette looks back up at Hercules. “What?”

“You okay dude? You started zoning pretty hard.”

“Yeah. Yes. I’m good.” He pauses. “Did you ask me something?”

“You heard from Jack yet?”

Yes. Jack. He had heard from John, seen him this morning, seen him last night. Laurens had spent June in Charleston, reined home by his father and his siblings. He loves his family, missed them, missed the long stretches of dunes and marsh and sea. Alexander had brought them to Brighton Beach once, claiming to have the antidote to the homesickness that occasionally pulled at Laurens. It apparently has no foothold when compared to the beach town that Laurens grew up in, and he’d done little more than kick at the sand and trek down the boardwalk to find soft serve ice cream.

“Laurens? Um. Ye... I. Yes.”

“Did you have to think about it?”

“No, I did – we have talked. The other day.”

Hercules only means to poke fun, but Lafayette goes increasingly flustered. He puts his beer down, lets his hair down and ties it back up again.

“The other day? When is he back in town?”

“Yes. He is. Back in town, he’s already back in town.” Lafayette presses his fingers against his eyes, groans when Hercules laughs at him.

“Are you okay, man?”

He can’t tell if the question is genuine or not. Despite that, he answers truthfully: “I’m not sure.”

“Oh. Shit.” The jest leaves his tone, teasing abandons his sentences. “What’s going on?” Hercules leans forward, his hand pressing against Lafayette’s shoulder again. “Laf?”

Lafayette sighs, tips his head back against the couch. Reaches over, touches the tips of his fingers over Hercules’s hand. “I’m okay,” he starts. “I’m good,” he insists. “Laurens is back in the city, I saw him. I saw him yesterday.”

“Okay? I’m not sure that I’m following.”

“There is not anything to follow. Yet. I met with him when he… when he came home from the airport. He told me that he hadn’t told you, or Alexander, that he was coming back yet. He’s working at the library now. Right now. I. Um. I saw him this morning, too.” The story is nothing, really. Leading up to exactly nothing, though there’s something that Lafayette is dancing around, circling the drain before he can manage to spit it out.

“Is Laurens okay?”

“I slept with him.”

“Oh.” A pause. They’re both quiet. The music bleeds through it, transitioning from end of one song to the beginning of the next. “ _Oh_.”

Lafayette presses the heels of his palms against his eyes, pushing down against his cheekbones and effectively hiding his face from Hercules’s lingering gaze.

“Are you okay? Is it weird? Are you weird about it? Is he weird about it?”

“I don’t know!” Lafayette interrupts before Hercules can ask another question. “I don’t know. We did not talk about it. Or have not. Yet. I’m not sure that we will.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he still coming tonight?”

“Yes. As far as I know. He did not say anything about _not_ coming, so I assume that he is.” Lafayette straightens, pushes himself up to stand. Paces only around the space between the couch and the windows that overlook the street. “I. Um. I’m still not entirely sure about what happened. I mean. Why it happened?”

Laurens is personable, all big smiles, all ability to fold himself into conversation without being or seeming awkward about it. Small talk with him is effortless – he smiles that smile, makes the casual conversation pass without hitch. Maybe it’s something about Southern charm. Maybe he’s just really, really good at faking it. Not that his interest or his friendliness is false, but perhaps that he’s spent enough time traveling through conversations that he knows what works and what doesn’t.

Laurens often flirts without meaning to. Maybe it’s something about the Southern charm. Maybe he’s just unaware of the effect that he has on people – or maybe he’s perfectly aware, flirts with intention, doesn’t care about the outcome.

“Hercules.” He turns around abruptly. “Hercules, I slept with Laurens.” He says it like he just realized it. Just realized the severity of it.

“Yeah? You want to talk about it?”

The suggestion turns Lafayette’s expression towards horror.

“No. No, I don’t think so.”

“Alright, dude. Chill, then.” Hercules opens one arm, gestures towards the couch next to him.

He takes the invitation, crosses the room again and picks up his beer before he sits with Hercules. Neither of them bring up Laurens, or even Alexander, for the remainder of the afternoon that they spend in solitude with each other. They have only a short time left in the afternoon sun and heat before Alexander and Laurens will be off work, and the Fourth of July festivities will begin.

Alexander shows first. Breathless from the stairs and already changed out of his work clothes, traded them for more casual clothes. Hercules’s door is unlocked, and Alexander has no qualms in letting himself in, but still announces his arrival: “Herc? Hey? I’m here,” he calls to the apartment.

“Living room,” Herc guides him.

He’s grinning when he enters the room. Already helped himself to the fridge, drink in hand when he appears. “Lafayette!” the grin breaks wider, lights up his eyes. “I thought you weren’t coming over until later.”

He responds with a shrug. “I was going to but. My afternoon, it cleared up.”

Lafayette had come over with the intention of talking through his inner strife with Hercules, but the entirety of it will have to wait for another day. Between his own incapability to sensibly talk, and with Alexander’s presence, it’s impractical to try and manage a three-wheeled heart to heart.

“Yeah?” he sits in one of the chairs across from the coach and cracks open his beer. Alexander looks like he wants to something and though it’s rare that he lacks that sort of demeanor, it puts Lafayette on edge. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says, instead. Maybe not instead, but it feels like something Alexander would say as an instead. There’s a single beat, filled by Alex grinning Lafayette’s way, before he turns to Hercules. “So! What are the festivities? When do the festivities start? Are we doing a proper, all American cook out before we find the best spot for the fireworks?”

Herc rolls his eyes. “If you consider a George Foreman grill all American and the top most level of my fire escape the best seats in the house, then yes.”

Alexander laughs. His grin is yet to leave him. It’s refreshing, seeing Alexander like this – maybe the closest you’d see him to relaxed without involving stretches of days without sleep, or a heavy dosage of tranquilizers.

Lafayette drinks his beer before it goes warm. Nothing worse than warm beer. He adds to the conversation, laughs with Hercules and Alexander. Eventually, Hercules gets up to get another beer. Lafayette shakes his empty when he gets up.

“Will you take it for me?”

“You want another one, man?” Hercules asks as he takes the empty. Lafayette shakes his head, declines but offers his thanks, as Hercules walks off to the kitchen. He feels Alexander’s eyes trained on him. Looks across the room to meet his gaze.

“I have a good feeling about this summer,” Alexander says. It’s out of the blue. Lafayette looks to him curiously.

“What do you mean?”

“Just a feeling.” He offers no clarification. “Are you going to France at all?”

The question feels like an abrupt change of conversation. It takes Lafayette off guard. He had humored the idea, briefly, of returning to France for any amount of time during the summer. Typically, he’d return for winter breaks but stay for summers. He hadn’t thought seriously about it until Laurens had announced that he’d be in South Carolina for the first half of summer, in the same breath going on about how excited he was to see his siblings, as if he hadn’t seen them in years, rather than the few months since January.

“I do not think so,” he shrugs. “I thought about it. I think I’ll wait until December, again.”

Alexander nods. “Now that we’re all back in the city, we should do this more often. We have the time.”

“Did Laurens tell you that he’s back?”

“When he told me that he was coming back in early July, I assumed that he was coming back in time for the party. Is he already back?”

Lafayette nods. “I helped him with his things. Bringing them back from the airport. I believe he’s working today, though.”

“I was in the library today; I’m surprised I didn’t see him.”

The conversation fades away from John. Lafayette asks Alexander questions about his internship, about what it’s like working under Martha and George Washington, about what had possessed him to go into the office on the fourth. Talking to Alexander is easy; he talks so much that Lafayette only needs to listen in order to be considered active in the conversation. When Hercules re-enters from the kitchen, carrying a mixed drink in a tall glass rather than another beer, it sparks the topic away from work and onto alcohol.

“I thought that you only had beer! Cheapskate,” Alexander accuses. He chugs the rest of his beer, anyway, and crushes the can in his hand when he stands. “Show me to the liquor, let me make a drink.”

Lafayette stands up, crosses the room to follow Alexander into the kitchen. The heat is finally starting to fade – not by much, and only with the sun starting to creep back towards the horizon. As the afternoon bleeds into evening, they’ll be able to cool down more.

“Your drinks are horrible,” Lafayette says. “I’ll make you one.”

Hercules keeps the liquor in the top cabinet above the fridge. Of the three of them, Hercules probably makes the best drinks – with Lafayette in a close second, and Alexander in dead last. His drinks are poorly proportioned and taste like a bottle of rubbing alcohol going down.

“I can make my own drinks,” Alexander says without making move to keep Lafayette from doing it for him.

“You can. But it hurts me to watch you drink them.” Lafayette retrieves two glasses from another cabinet, pours equal amounts of alcohol into them. Finds something to mix with and performs some kind of magic. “Try this,” he hands one of the glasses to Alexander, who gladly takes it. Hums his approval when he takes the first sip.

The front door forces open. Laurens finally graces them with his presence. Lafayette busies himself with his drink.

“God Almighty. I’ll never understand how New York summers manage to be hotter than the Carolinas.” He’s leaning some of his weight on the door, hand still curled around the knob. He’s fanning himself with the other, wiping at the sweat beading on his forehead. His tank top is falling off of one shoulder. The month-plus that he’d spent in Charleston left him sunkissed, his freckles exponential, he still smelled like sea salt and warm sand when he came out of the airport.

“About time.”

He shoots Alexander an unamused look. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, you missed me,” he says, quickly taking up a smile. Laurens finally closes the door behind him, pulls his shirt back over his shoulder. As he crosses the kitchen, he shakes the back of it, pulling the collar up but getting some air flow to his back and sides.

He refuses Alexander’s hug, on the same claim of it being too hot to exist. Trades it for a one-armed side hug, squeeze around the shoulders. His accent bleeds through, lays thick on the vowels of his words, draws them out. It always does when he spends more than a few days around his family. He goes to Hercules next, close enough to slap hands and clap him on the shoulder. Asks him how he’s been. Alexander and Laurens are near inseparable, even during their busy semesters – so it’s not surprising that they need less catching up.

“Help yourself to the fridge, man,” Herc’s voice carries as he returns to the living room. “Yo, Ham, come help me set up this grill. You’re the one dancin’ to get on with it.”

And he’s alone with Laurens in the kitchen, nursing his drink.

“Hey.”

Lafayette sets the glass down on the counter. “Hey.” It’s safe, and it keeps the ball in John’s court. Unsure of what to make of the situation, Lafayette can feel his stomach sinking in his abdomen. A sour taste overcomes the aftertaste of alcohol. Laurens crosses the kitchen.

“What are you drinking?” he asks, nodding to the glass as he traces his hands over the bottles that Lafayette had pulled out earlier.

“Do you want me to make you one, too?”

Laurens grins his response. “You know me well.”

He obliges, even lets Laurens try a sip of the drink he’d already made as he goes through the same motions. Adds a little extra liquor to John’s cup, and to his own.

“Don’t tell Alexander that I gave you more,” he says. John laughs before miming a zipper across his lips, promises not to. Lafayette is halfway into starting to say something as he passes the drink to Laurens.  

John beats him to it. “Don’t. Not here,” he says, glances over his shoulder. Like he knew that Lafayette would want to talk about it. “We’re good, right?” he doesn’t wait for Lafayette to nod. “Ham’s just going to stick his nose into it if he finds us whispering about something,” he says. “Not now, okay?”

“Okay.” Lafayette’s agreement is reluctant.

Laurens drops the serious tone. His smile comes back, fills the cracks left by the tension in his voice. He takes the cup that Lafayette offers, touches Laf’s arm with his free hand. When Lafayette doesn’t pull away from his touch, he lets his hand smooth over his skin, trail down to circle around his wrist. Laf cracks, turns his hand in John’s grip, pushes his hand into it and laces their fingers. John squeezes his hand. He’s weak, weak for Laurens in a way that he hadn’t known he could be. Their night had been good, great, but the morning had been punctuated by Laurens swearing under his breath and rushing to get dressed, not even trying to be quiet and keep from waking Lafayette up.

_“Late for work, I’m gonna be late for work,” he’d said as he smiled his apology and the kiss that he’d given Laf before leaving lingered – lingered from quick and chaste, lingered on Lafayette’s mouth when he left._

“I missed you, Gil,” he says, earnest. He traces the curve of Lafayette’s knuckle with the pad of his thumb.

There’s no pause in his response: “I missed you, too.”

“C’mon, let’s go help Herc. You know Ham’s probably gonna manage to set that grill on fire anyway.”

Laurens tugs him by the hand. Drops it when they pass through the archway into the living room. They don’t talk about it, not later, not alone, and not after the second, third, fourth times that they sleep together over the duration of the summer.

\---

“Hercules?” Lafayette has been sitting in the silence for too long. He ferments in his thoughts and is left with a whole bubbling of emotion in his gut and in his chest. The words start to boil towards the surface and he fears that if he reached to smother them further, he’d suffocate under the weight of it. Hercules only hums to acknowledge that he’d spoken. “Can I stay here tonight?”

The question draws surprise across Herc’s expression – eyes shot up, eyebrows drawn with either confusion or worry. He doesn’t hesitate: “Yeah, man. Of course.”

And then he does hesitate: “ _Is_ everything okay?”

Despite his previous insistence, Lafayette doesn’t reiterate the claim. Instead, he offers a half-smile, one corner of his mouth turned up as assurance. “It will be.”


	4. October IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't expect to talk about this in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to be the schuyler sisters' halloween party episode, but instead gay things happened. 
> 
> (also?? what's this?? an update that DIDNT take two weeks? amazing. don't know if it'll ever happen again.)

He wakes up with a crick in his neck and the muscles of his back pulled tight, aching around his spine and down through his hips. Having not been resigned to sleeping on the couch for beautiful months of the mattress he’d splurged on and sheets he’d splurged on, Lafayette feels a pull of resentment. He’s not sure if it’s himself, or Laurens, or the incessant beeping of the coffeemaker that had drawn him out of sleep, but it’s there and it lingers in his stomach and floats up his chest, nests there.

He groans when he sits up, stretches his arms up over his head in an attempt to loosen his back.

“Morning sleeping beauty,” Hercules grins, poking his head in from the kitchen.

“What time is it?”

“Half-past seven. You’ve got a few hours before class.” Hercules brings him coffee and a bowl of cereal. He settles into the armchair across from the couch with his own breakfast and mug. “Jack called me last night.”

“He did?” there’s genuine surprise there, however masked by the sleepy gravel in Laf’s voice. He takes a long, long drink from his coffee.

“Yeah, he was lookin’ for you.”

Lafayette only hums his response. Finds his phone on the arm of the couch, plugged into Herc’s spare charger. Bless him, always looking out. He presses the home button and the screen comes to life – there’s a stream of text messages from John, interrupted by a missed call from him and a message from Peggy. The latest text is from around midnight and from John.

_Are you really not coming home?_

It awakens the feeling in his chest, like fire licking it to light and his chest lurches when he reads it. The emotion reads clear on his body, his chest caved in and shoulders tipped forward and hands curling tight around his phone. He swipes away each of the notifications with the pad of one thumb and sets his phone away from him.

“You good, dude?”

Laf only nods before taking to eating his breakfast. Pointedly ignores Hercules frowning at him and forces silence over their breakfast.

It isn’t long before Lafayette needs to leave for home, to change before class and brush his teeth and shower, if he has the time. He gathers the bag that he’d brought and pockets his phone and his halfway turning the doorknob when Herc stops him by the arm.

“Don’t forget what I said, yeah? I’m here if you need someone,” he reminds.

“Thank you,” Lafayette says, earnest, his eyes warming. “Don’t forget what I said, either. Things are fine, and they will be.”

Hercules squeezes his shoulder. “Alright, man. I’ll see you.”

By some grace, the apartment is empty when Lafayette makes it home. John’s mug rests on the counter, turned upside down on a dishtowel to dry. Half the pot is still filled with coffee, still warm when Lafayette presses the tips of his fingers against the carafe. He pours it, adds cream, and drinks it while he gets ready. He has time for his shower, dresses presentable for class, collects some papers and his laptop from his desk before he leaves to catch the train uptown.

He makes plans to see Alexander in the afternoon, after their classes.

“I heard you had quite the weekend,” Lafayette teases when Alexander meets him at the entrance of a café they frequent.

Alexander’s greeting falls with his smile. “Who told you,” he demands, eyes narrowing.

“It isn’t a secret that liquor gets the better of you.” Lafayette has, on more than one occasion, been the one to hold back Alexander’s hair and rub his back and bring him water, encourage him to drink it and drink more when the first glass only brought up more alcohol. “Peggy may have brought it up,” he says when Alexander continues to frown at him. Lafayette gives him a gentle smile. “We’ve all been there.”

They fall into step as they walk to the line. Alexander has very quickly gotten over his sour expression, taking instead to making casual conversation, mostly about the content of the lecture they’d had that morning. He has opinions on everything, anything – from the content itself to the delivery, to the way that the professor handles being asked tough questions.

He drops the conversation soon enough to muse, tone nonchalant but intention prodding: “You know, we haven’t spent much time together recently. Just the two of us.” Alexander talks loud enough for Laf to hear, quiet enough to keep from bothering other patrons as they find a free, relatively clean table by the big, storefront windows. “You always just wanted to go home after class.” Though there’s no explicit questioning, he still carries an expectant look over the rim of his mug when he takes the first drink of his coffee.

“I miss hanging out with you,” Lafayette shrugs. “It has been a while, and you’re usually busy.”

Alexander’s eyes warm with his smile, more light coming into them and highlighting their ocher undertones.

“You’re always welcome to come over to my place, or Eliza’s.”

“I know. I should, sometime.”

“Yes, you should.” Alexander leans over, pulling a textbook out of his bag along with a spiral-bound notebook. “Just let me know?”

“Of course,” he smiles his response.

“Can I look over your notes?” Alexander sits waiting. Lafayette finds his own notebook, taking it out with his laptop, and offers the small, bound book to him. Alexander flips through the pages, reading it as dutifully as he scans through his textbooks. As Lafayette watches him, he wonders if Alexander will pull the pen from behind his ear and start making marginal annotations and highlighting important passages. Instead, he transcribes parts of the notes, using them to supplement his own.

They fall into silence like this – Lafayette sitting at his open computer, typing out the outline for the paper that he has due in a few weeks, as Alexander goes through their notes and his textbook. Their midterms are coming up, soon, by the middle of November they’ll be nearly two-thirds of the way through the semester, and then they’ll have finals in mid-December.

He knows well that Alexander’s impossible study schedule will only become more impossible as their finals draw nearer. He knows that, if he’s going to spend any time with him over the next weeks, they should get into the habit sooner rather than later.

“When I finish my paper, will you look over it?” No answer. He pushes his foot forward, prods at Alexander’s shin. “Alexander.”

“Huh? What?”

“Will you look over my paper when its finished?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. It’ll be a nice change to read your writing, rather than any of my students.” Alexander nearly rolls his eyes. “Honestly, you would think that more freshmen would be required to take an introductory writing course before they move forward in their requirements.” Mentioning his students brings a light of recognition to Alexander’s eyes, and he swears. “Fuck, I completely forgot – ” he shuffles through his bag, retrieves a thick, yellow clasped envelope, “ – I promised my students I’d have their draft feedback finished this week.”

Alexander pulls out the stack of essays, sorted into two separate piles: one of the completed drafts, marked up in pen, the other yet to be proofread. As he starts to go through the last of the papers, Lafayette’s phone buzzes with an incoming text message. It’s from Laurens, again, adding to the unanswered messages from the previous night.

_Are you coming home?_

Alexander’s attention is briefly drawn by the noise, but doesn’t have time to read the text before Lafayette takes the phone. He goes through the messages again.

_You didn’t have to leave, dude_

_I didn’t tell her. For what it’s worth._

_Where are you?_

His missed call fell just after this text. 

_Are you really not coming home?_

And now: _Are you coming home?_

His chest tightens again, going over the messages. Emotion swells against the tightness and he closes the thread, choosing instead to ignore and get work done. Lingering will only keep him from being productive, he tells himself as he silences his phone and places it in his bag. Despite Lafayette’s best efforts, the feeling lingers even when his thoughts return to the outline and the articles spread out before him. The pull and swell spreads into his stomach, settling there heavily, nesting under his sternum.

It isn’t a sharp or nagging pain, but dull and achey and winding to fill the spaces of his chest. He inhales deeply and his breath comes out shaky. He and Alexander are silent again – and Alexander has tuned out everything in his determination to finish going through his students’ work. So his discomfort goes blissfully unnoticed.

His fingers itch to pull his phone out, to answer Laurens’s texts, tell him _yes, I’m coming home_ , but instead he drums them over the buttons of his keyboard. The sensation only makes itself more apparent, from the uncomfortable fullness in his chest to the cold feeling of prickling under his skin.

Lafayette sits back, sighs, rubs his eyes with the fingers of one hand.

“I think I’m going to head out,” he tells Alexander after gaining his attention. “I… It’s been a long day,” he settles, not wanting to delve into anything more than shallow conversation.

“Okay,” Alexander nods. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Lafayette reaffirms his RSVP to the Schuyler’s party as he packs up his things. Convinces himself that he’s tired and restless and sore from his lousy sleep on Hercules’s couch as he says his goodbye to Alexander.

The apartment isn’t empty when he arrives home. The overhead light in the kitchen is on, and he can hear music drifting from the direction of John’s bedroom. The fullness in his chest jumps into his throat and he pauses at the door only to lock it and leave his shoes on the mat. He pauses again, at the door to his bedroom, hand on the doorknob and eyes glancing towards the opposite door. The music is louder here, edging out around the gaps between the door and its frame, and he can hear more clearly that it’s the kind of indie, guitar-heavy music that John has always listened to.

Lafayette worries his lip, goes into his room without hearing any stirring from the other bedroom. His breath comes out heavy when the closes the door and deposits his bag and his keys on his desk. Even with the walls and doors between them, he doesn’t feel quite alone. Tries to shake the feeling as he changes into sweats and an old t-shirt.

He’s tying back his hair when a knock comes at his door. “Laf?” his voice sounds small, and John pauses, planted on the other side of the door. “Gil, can I come in?”

“Yeah. Yes, come in.”

He sits on the edge of his bed, hands pressed down against the sheets and legs stretched out in front of him. Waits. John hesitates, like maybe he’d expected to be turned away, and Lafayette almost asks him if he’s going to come in before the door comes open into the room.

“Herc said you slept at his place last night.” John stays standing in the well of the door, light from his room bleeding in behind him, catching on flyaway hairs and around the edges of his sweatshirt. Gil had only turned on his desk lamp, leaving his room dim and quiet.

“I did.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to. It was late.”

John looks down and twists his fingers into the cuff of one sleeve. “You didn’t _have_ to,” he only repeats.

Gil reads the emphasis as a wanting, gets the idea that maybe John didn’t want him to be away for a night, and his chest swells again, pushing tightness up through his throat. He swallows it down. Crosses one arm over his middle.

“I know that I didn’t have to. I wanted to.”

“Okay, okay, you wanted to, but – why?” John’s gaze comes up again, not sharp but demanding. He pushes his sleeves up to the elbow. Looks like he wants to step forward but stays where he is, arms crossed in the doorway, body leaning forward and knees buckled.

His hair is mostly tied back. Those few tendrils fall in his face again. Lafayette thinks about drawing forward, pushing the curls behind John’s ear, but smothers the idea. This time, he looks away.

“I just. I don’t understand, okay? You’ve never…” he doesn’t trail off so much as his conviction fades. Standing in the doorway, with no indication of grasping even a thread of Lafayette’s attention, it makes him falter. John chews the inside of his lip, stares at Lafayette, waits for him to come back.

When he looks up again, finally, and looks at John, he finds that he has taken a few, cautious steps forward. Enough so that his face is bathed in the light from the desk lamp. The expression he’s been harboring and forcing away is twisted with something else that overtakes the way that the expression just doesn’t fit on Laurens’s face. Confusion, maybe, from the way his brows are lowered and furrowed, but his eyes have the glassy look of pain to them.

Lafayette looks away quickly.

“Why are you – why are you acting like this?”

He trains his eyes downcast. Again. Traces a line of woodgrain in the floorboards with the side of one foot.

“Really? Are you for real? Ignoring my texts is one thing, Gil, but – but. Come on, don’t do this to me.” His voice goes weak in the middle of his sentence and he clears his throat harshly to steady it. “If you won’t tell me why you slept at Herc’s, can you at least tell me why you were acting so weird yesterday? I thought – Gil, I thought we were fine, we were fine when we left, why were you weird about it?”

Lafayette knows that he’ll keep going if he doesn’t provide an answer. That, if Laurens is left to snowball down the path he’s made, whatever upset is tugging at him and his voice and his expression will fall to anger. And with anger, his prying questions will turn to accusations.

“I wasn’t weird about it,” he says, petulant.

“You left!” There it is. John’s face, his eyes, light up with his temper. “You asked if I _told_ Peggy and then you just _left_. That’s pretty fucking weird, dude. What the fuck.”

He doesn’t have a response for that, doesn’t mean to shrug him off either. Lafayette sighs, heavy, and lets his shoulders slump, releasing the tension that had built in them when John had first entered his room. “I… am sorry,” he manages. Though unsure over the apology, and what made him feel compelled to make it, he doesn’t add to it.

Maybe it had been the confusion that has painted itself back into John’s expression, or the desperate kind of pleading with his eyes. Lafayette reminds himself not to project onto him, that he’s not desperate, never has been, never will be.

“You’re sorry?” John repeats, incredulous. The flame of his anger doesn’t burn out under the salve of the apology and he narrows his eyes.

“I’m not trying to placate you.”

“I don’t want an apology,” he asserts. “I want an explanation. I – I want to know what’s going on with you,” he continues, stepping closer to Lafayette until he is precisely in front of him, his body blocking most of the light from the lamp and casting a shadow over Lafayette.

“Nothing. Nothing is going on with me,” he says. Reaches forward, tentative, touches John’s hand. That is what conciliates him. Instinctively, John’s hand uncurls and clasps around Lafayette’s fingers. “Come here,” he says, quiet.

Lafayette braces his weight on his other arm, pressing his palm into the mattress behind him. The gentle tug the motion pulls on John’s arm is initially met with resistance before he caves, steps all the way forward, and puts his knees on either side of Lafayette’s legs. Sits on his lap. Puts his hand on his shoulder and curls his fingertips into the fabric of his shirt.

He eases his hand out of John’s grip, traces it up and down his back, skirting the hem where the waistband of his sweatshirt begins. John drapes his freed arm over Lafayette’s shoulder, finds the ridges and angles of his shoulder blades and his spine.

They sit like this, silent save for their breathing, kept close with gentle touches in their almost-embrace, for a long while. The sun completely sets over the horizon of building tops.

“Hey,” John breaks the silence in a whisper. Lafayette’s arm has fully curled around him, pulling him even closer. He shifts, moves back a little, and takes Gil’s face in both hands. He touches his fingers around his jawline, tracing the bone, rubs his thumbs along the grain of his stubble. “Come here.”

John kisses him gingerly. It lacks the usual drunk, lustful fever; what replaces that is slow and easy, like they have all the time in the world to sit and kiss and kiss. Lafayette leans back farther, into the pillows, puts his hands on John’s hips to keep him in place when he pulls his legs up onto the bed. One of John’s hands moves to Gil’s chest, pushes down to steady himself. The other stays put, cupping his jaw and petting his beard.

When Lafayette’s hands slip under his sweatshirt, John stops. Pulls back, breathless. His cheeks have a pretty flush and his lips are shiny with his spit, Laf’s spit. He worries his lower lip, biting down into it nervously. Lafayette draws one hand out, presses his thumb against John’s lip until he releases it.

“Don’t do that,” he murmurs. Lets his other hand flatten against the warm, soft skin of John’s side.

“I – I should – ” he stammers.

“No. No, no, don’t go anywhere, stay where you are,” Laf interrupts him. The curl of emotion that has been nesting, waiting, in his chest works its way up and out of his mouth before he can force it down.

“Okay, okay. I’m here,” he whispers back. “Not going anywhere,” he promises. Seals it with another kiss – still slow and lingering, but shorter and sweet. Lafayette smothers the urge to kiss him again when he leans back, smothers the urge to let all that’s twisting in and filling his chest spill into the little air between them.

“What are you thinking about?” he keeps that low, secret quality in his voice. Rubs his thumb against Lafayette’s cheek. Laf makes a small hum, hadn’t fully heard him. Heard him but not registered. He watches as Laurens breaks into an enamored smile. “What are you thinking about?” he asks again.

“Nothing, nothing,” he shakes his head. Resists the urge.

“I always know when you’re thinking hard about something. You get this… this distant look in your eyes.” The thought sounds unfinished, like he’s holding something back, too. Or maybe, simply got distracted, because he starts tracing Lafayette’s lower lip with the pad of his thumb.

They kiss each other sleepy. John leans over, onto his side, and pulls Lafayette with him. He keeps one leg draped over his hips and the other pushed between Laf’s. His hands touch his face and his neck and his arms, seeking out any stretch of skin that they can find. Lafayette’s hands are still under his sweatshirt, holding around his ribcage and his sides and his hips, but never fall below the waistband. When John is too sleepy to kiss, Laf noses against his throat, kissing him there and sucking on the skin of his collarbone and neck.

He sighs the softest sigh, letting his head lull to one side, giving Lafayette more skin exposed. “I’m tired,” he says, voice groggy and thick with sleep, before stifling a yawn with one hand. “Go turn off the lights, I wanna sleep.” John pushes at Lafayette’s shoulder until he complies. Waits with open arms when he makes careful way back to bed in the dark, wraps his arms and legs right back around him. “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

Lafayette’s chest swells with the words, with the way that John’s quiet, tired voice sounds. All warmth, no cold, skin-pricking ache. He smiles into John’s neck. “Yeah. Yes, you can.”

“Wait, wait.”

John pulls out of his grip to shimmy out of his sweatpants and drop them off the bed without ceremony. In just his sweatshirt and underwear, he finds the way he fits against Lafayette again and tugs blankets over them. His legs are long and lean and warm even through the fabric of Lafayette’s pants. The hand he places over his thigh is cautious, resting a safe distance between his hip and knee, and is still with the exception of small, circles he rubs into John’s skin with his thumb.

He goes back to kissing his neck, over his collar and tendons and at the crook where his throat meets his jaw. Stops only when John goes still against him, limbs heavy in sleep and his breathing bottomed out to slow, full, deep inhales. Lafayette tucks stray curls behind his ear. Spends a long, silent while rubbing his palm against John’s back and listening to him breathe and thinking about just how they ended up like this. They’ve slept like this before, limbs tangled and hands seeking out stretches of warm, bare skin, but not without sex, first.

Lafayette tries not to linger on it too much. Draped in the warmth of blankets and John pressed against him, he relaxes his shoulders and back and, eventually, drifts off.


	5. October V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing has to make sense if you keep giving people mixed signals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) as usual, apologies for this taking so long to update! finals were very busy and i had some trouble hammering out some of the details of this chapter but it's finally here (:
> 
> 2) now that i'm finished with my final exams, hopefully i'll be able to have a more regular update schedule! i'm hoping to update every week at the most frequent, but it may end up being more like every week-and-a-half depending.

Lafayette wakes up alone. More importantly, he wakes up late. He’d been too caught up in the night before to remember to plug in his phone and set his alarm. The rush that he needs to take in order to get ready leaves him disheveled to Lafayette-standards, put together enough for his classmates, and gives him with no time to check around the apartment to see if John is still there before he leaves.

It's easy to feel alone in the city. Crowds of people in the morning commute gives too little space for anyone to watch too carefully. People that commute together stand or sit side by side, talk idly to each other, but for the most part the noise is dominated by the hum of the moving train and the squealing of brakes as it stops and the engine as it revs back to life to take off for the next platform. Lafayette watches the way the light comes in and out of the window ahead of him.

And though he tries not to, he thinks about John. About the night before. About falling asleep with him, and waking up alone. Feels lousy over it. He grasps one of the overhead holds to keep upright when the train lurches to a stop. It forces him out of his head and out of his thoughts. They sea out of the doors, Lafayette keeping along, up the stairs and out into the open air.

There’s no late-fall rain to collect in the gaps that make the sidewalk uneven, or in the cracks of the aging concrete. The sun tries to push out of the heavy overcast clouds, but isn’t strong enough to shine the dreary out of the day. His stride is quick as he weaves through the crowd of commuters, and then the crowds of students littering the quad and the hallways.

By some miracle, though, the haste he takes does grant him the grace of getting to class with a minute to spare.

Aaron saved him a seat, and is kind enough to move his bag so Lafayette can sit. Greets him politely. “Running late?”

He laughs low and half-heartedly. “I forgot to set my alarm.”

They talk idly for the bit of time they have before the professor calls the class to begin, turns the projector on with a wireless remote. She reminds the class of the topics they’d covered last week before lecturing over the new material. The lecture slows as students begin raising questions for the professor to elaborate on and make clarifications for. Lafayette has trouble keeping his focus.

Usually an attentive and dutiful student, the lapse in his concentration unsettles him. He marks it up to the fact that in his hurry to leave, he’d neglected to make coffee, or to even check the pot to see if John had made enough for both of them, and was cutting time too close to risk waiting in line to buy it.

At the end of class, and with the bustle of students packing up their things, he asks Aaron to send him the notes from the lecture.

“Sure, of course,” he nods. Opens his email and copies the notes he’d taken into the body before sending it Lafayette’s way. Lafayette thanks him as his phone buzzes with the incoming email.

He and Aaron make their way out of the lecture hall together. Shallow conversation. When they pass through the exit, back out into the quad, they’re met with a light, bitter wind.

“You seem distracted.”

He’s been getting that a lot, this week.

“Tired,” he counters. “I didn’t have time for coffee. Or breakfast.” Aaron accepts it with reservation and offers to accompany Lafayette on his walk to one of the places on campus to get coffee and something to eat.

“Are you still seeing that girl?” he pushes the conversation into Aaron’s life, what he’s been up to, anything that he’s willing to delve into.

Aaron’s smile is gentle, and real, not the stiff one that he tends to force and that tends to make him look as though he’s in pain. “Theodosia. And yes, I am,” he says fondly. Proudly. “We’ve been dating for a few months.”

The fullness in his chest stirs and blooms with the same, persistent ache. He smiles and swallows down the tightness in his throat. “I’d like to meet her, sometime,” he says, earnest.

“Eliza invited us to the party tonight. I assume you’re going?”

“I’ll be there,” he nods. Remembers his promise to Peggy. Tries not to think about John. Tucks his hands into his pockets. He and Aaron continue to talk idly as they walk. He learns more about Theodosia, and they come to an agreement of wanting winter break to come faster. Aaron leaves him at the entrance of the student union, explaining that he’s going to meet with a professor during their office hours before wishing Lafayette a good day.

The rest of the day is dreary and long and Lafayette’s concentration doesn’t improve even after he’s had his coffee. His lectures do little to capture his attention because he is _distracted_ with the weight of his thoughts. By the time the afternoon comes around, he’s more than ready to go home. Hopes that the apartment is empty as he traces his steps back across campus, back down the sidewalk, back towards the subway.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. The incoming text is from Peggy, inviting him to come by her and Eliza’s place early to help set up the party, offering to paint his face for the party because _Jack told me you didn’t have a costume._

Maybe it’s against his better judgement to agree. He goes home with the intention of dropping off his things, but winds up taking his sweet time changing and getting ready for the party. He makes it to the Schuyler home eventually.

He’s late. By the time Lafayette finally arrives, the party has already started. Peggy answers the door when he rings the bell and her entire face lights up: “Laf! I didn’t think you were gonna make it!” and she hugs him tight.

“Of course, I told you I – ”

Before he can get a sentence out, she’s tugging him inside by both arms. “Come in, come in,” she ushers him. Already drunk, she’s talking incessantly, one arm looped through his and pulling him as she weaves through her mingling guests. “Do you want a drink? Oh! Do you still want me to paint your face? I already did Jack’s.”

John is sitting on the arm of a chair, the ghost of a smile on his face as he listens to Alexander talk on and on. The breaks wider when he laughs. He’s wearing a different sweatshirt from last night, and his oldest pair of jeans. The ones that have a rip through one knee that only seems to get bigger every time he wears them. He has hickeys dotted up one side of his neck, not unknown to Lafayette and apparently not hidden from the others.

Lafayette’s brain goes quiet.

“I’ll take that drink,” he says, breaking his gaze when Peggy pulls harder on his arm. She only gives him his arm back when they’ve made their way into the kitchen and she’s started turning bottles to see what they have. “I thought it was BYOB?”

Peggy dismisses it with a flippant hand and an exaggerated _psh._ “No matter. We have plenty. ‘Sides, uh, Jack brought some stuff, you can just take from that if you wanna.” Distracted, she hums to herself as she crosses to the other side of the kitchen and looks at those bottles. “What do you want? We’ve got beer, obviously. I think Jack brought gin – you like gin and tonics, right?” she turns, grinning, holding her prize: the bottle of gin.

She’s already making him a drink before he can protest. Even goes through the trouble of searching for the leftover wedges of a sliced lime that she swore she’d put back in the fridge to garnish the drink. Even if it’s in a plastic cup. It’s the thought that counts.

“Here,” she says. “It’s strong.”

He tries it. Tells her it’s good. Despite the history of their tipsy Tuesday celebrations involving levels of intoxication further from buzzed and closer to full drunkenness (to the point of blackout, once), Lafayette tells himself that he won’t be getting drunk tonight.

“Now let me paint your face – come on,” Peggy has already hooked her arm around his again, and is already pulling him back out into the living room. She sits him down next to Eliza.

“Hi, Gil,” she says. Short, sweet. She squeezes his arm when Peggy goes off to relocate the grease paints she’d done Laurens’ face with.

“Hi, Eliza,” he mimes, and smiles a real smile. “How are you?”

They chat idly. About their days, about things going on. Eliza laughs when Peggy comes back and nearly trips over the leg of their coffee table.

“Be _careful_ ,” she chides, still laughing. Laughs harder when Peggy musters up all of her maturity to respond by sticking her tongue out and blowing a raspberry at her. She sits on the coffee table to begin work on painting Lafayette’s face, sticking her fingers in grease paint and applying it thickly.

“This is disgusting,” he tells her. She grins, sticks her tongue out just slightly as she focuses to try and use the black paint to make his eyes and cheekbones look sunken in.

She only gets about halfway through when John comes up behind her, grinning, and interrupts with: “Are you really torturing him with this, too?”

“He said I could!” she exclaims, startling as she turns around to look at him. Drops the grease paint in the process. From the angle of her profile, Lafayette can only half-see her expression fall. “You wiped off your paint. I can’t believe you. I’m hurt, honestly,” she shakes her head at him. “Lafayette would never do this to me.”

He makes a high pitched noise. “Wouldn’t I?”

“Oh my god. Really?” she points a paint-covered finger at him. “Traitor,” then points it at Laurens. “Both of you, I swear.” She sits there, for a second, disappointment in her frown, before she gets up on the claim of needing to go to the kitchen and get a new drink. Laurens stands there, for a second, before he offers a polite smile and trails after her.

Lafayette watches his back, only for a moment, before he turns back to Eliza and continues their conversation.

“Where is Angelica, anyway?” he asks, eventually.

Before she replies, Eliza takes a sip from her drink. Shrugs. “She said she had to get some work done. She has a big presentation coming up next week, I think.”

“A Tuesday really isn’t the most ideal day for a party, either,” she adds. “But Halloween is Peggy’s thing, and she wanted to do it.”

“There are worse things to indulge her in,” he says.

Eliza reaches over and squeezes his hand. “We’ll get everyone together again soon. When are your exams over? I’m sure we could throw something together before Christmas…”

“I might go back to France.” Lafayette looks almost as surprised as Eliza. He hadn’t thought about leaving for the winter recess. Until now. With a moment’s consideration, nursing his drink, he figures that some time away from New York, could be good for him.

“That sounds nice,” Eliza says as she recovers her warm smile.

“I’m. I am thinking about it,” he says. Noncommittal. “I’ll let you know?”

“Okay.” She squeezes his hand again, before pulling back. Looks like she’s about to say something else, but they’re interrupted by Alexander.

“Yo, Laf, we’re gonna do shots – you in?” Lafayette shakes his head. “No? Really? Lame.” Alexander turns his attention to Eliza: “Babe?” and frowns when she, too, declines his offer. “Alright, well. If you change your mind,” he nods towards the kitchen before heading that way himself.

The telltale sounds of group shot-taking comes from around the archway: counting down from three, choruses of voices, the sounds of cringing from the burn of the alcohol. After the second, Aaron emerges with a sour expression.

“Oh my god. Burr did shots. With _Alexander_.”

Eliza laughs behind her hand. “He doesn’t really hate Aaron, you know. He’s just dramatic.” She rolls her eyes, but her smile is fond. “I think they could be good friends if Alex would try.”

The others – Herc, Laurens, Alexander – follow after Aaron not long after. Loud and boisterous and drunk. John is holding onto Hercules’s shoulder, laughing and smiling about something. He reaches over and nudges Alexander’s shoulder with the back of his hand when he says something else, makes both of them laugh.

Lafayette finishes his drink. Uses it as an excuse to get away from the party, even if for a moment.

“I’m going to get another drink. Do you want anything?” he asks Eliza.

“Please,” she says, offering him her emptied cup. “Anything. You make good drinks. Surprise me.”

He makes his way around to the kitchen, passing behind Alexander and Hercules and John unnoticed. Before making another drink, he rinses out his cup, fills it with water. Takes his time to drink it. Decides that he doesn’t want to be anywhere near drunkenness tonight. Despite being only steps away from the party, the kitchen is quiet. One window is open and lets in the chill and the breeze. He sighs, heavy, tries to enjoy the quiet as he makes the drinks.

Alexander has stolen his spot when he returns. Unsurprising. He leans over the coffee table to hand Eliza her drink.

“Laurens puked,” Alexander says plainly.

“Really? My money was on you,” he mimics the flatness of Alexander’s tone. Alexander tries to kick his ankle under the table.

_“Hey, Laf, can you come up here for a sec?”_ Peggy’s voice sounds from the top of the stairs. The request draws everyone’s attention towards him – he can feel the gazes on him, but only makes eye contact with Hercules across the room. Herc grabs his arm when Lafayette passes him on his way to the staircase. The reminder is unspoken.

“I’m fine, Hercules,” he says, voice low. “I’m just going to see what she wants.” He slips out of the hand around his arm, holds onto the railing as he goes up the stairs.

The door to the bathroom at the end of the hall is open, light on, and he assumes Peggy and John are there. He knocks on the doorframe before stepping into the well of the door. “You called?”

She’s sitting cross-legged on the bathmat, back facing him. John looks vaguely miserable and is leaning against the wall beside her. He stirs when Peggy nudges his arm and says quietly: “Hey. Hey, Laf’s here.” Lafayette assumes that she wants to tap out, let someone else take care of John for a minute. She rubs John’s shoulder before she stands up. Touches Lafayette’s arm when she starts to walk out of the bathroom, keeps her voice low, keeps it from carrying. “He asked for you,” she shrugs. His chest flutters. “I’m going to get him some water. Do you mind just keeping an eye on him?”

“No. No, I can.”

“Thanks,” she squeezes his arm and shuffles past him.

Lafayette hesitates. Thinks about the night before, about waking up alone, tries to push it away as he crouches next to Laurens. “Hey,” he whispers, touches his arm. “Hey. I’m here.” John makes a vague noise to acknowledge him. He sighs, sits next to him, back against the wall. “How much did you drink?”

John groans. “Ugh, too much. Too much.”

“Alexander said you threw up.”

“No. Not yet. I might.” He pushes his hands against his hair, pulls the tie that’s keeping half of it up until it falls back to his shoulders. He holds the tie in his mouth as he collects it entirely, and secures it into a bun to keep it off of his neck.

“Do you need anything?”

“No. Don’t think so.”

“Okay.” Lafayette lets the conversation die, watches John’s expression smooth out as he tips his head back against the tiled wall. The air between them is markedly different – not necessarily tense, or awkward, but different. Heavy. He curls his fingers into his palm to keep from reaching out to him. Isn’t sure of what is or isn’t okay, or what to do, feels helpless.

“Here’s some water.” He hadn’t heard Peggy come up the stairs, hadn’t noticed her come back, until she’s handing him a glass of water. “Make sure he drinks it all,” she pauses and looks between them. “Are you good up here alone?” she asks. Then grins. “This bathroom isn’t built for three people. Trust me. When Angie, Eliza, and I are getting ready in the morning… Let’s just say it’s not pretty.”

“I have it,” he says. Takes the glass. “Go back downstairs, we’re good.”

“Okay.” Peggy starts to leave, stops halfway out the door way. “Thanks, Laf.” She interrupts him before he can dismiss her thanks. “Really. You’re good to him. If you wanna go back downstairs, just let me know and I’ll come back up for him.”

Though less cryptic, more genuine, her words leave him with the same feeling of malaise budding in his stomach, fodder for the twisting in his chest. He tries to push it down and touches John’s arm.

“Drink this,” he urges. “You’ll feel better.” Helps John tip it back to start and drink it in breaks. Gulps at first, then slowing to the occasional sips, until he’s drained the glass. “Better?”

John clears his throat. “Yeah, yeah.”

He takes the glass to refill it with the tap, sets it next to John should he want it. Silence drags on, dissipating and mixing with the heaviness in the air. Each breath that he takes serves only to mark the passage of time, dragging on achingly.

“John – ”

“I don’t want to talk right now, Gil.”

He’s cut off before he can get even a word in. The way that John always knows when he wants to say something, and when that something is uncharted territory, unsettles him. Maybe it was the inconsolable silence between them, the silence that pushed thickness into the air that had given him away. But now, and despite this denseness, the air feels too thin to get a proper breath in. Lafayette presses his lips together as he stares on at John, swallows with difficulty when he tips his head downward. Agrees to the silence for a moment.

“Why did you ask for me, then?”

“Can’t you just let it go?” he leans forward, elbows on his knees and face in his hands. “Please, just – let it go.”

Eventually, he has to ask: “Let what go?” despite the uncertainty of whether he wants the clarification or not. Because it could mean the conversation, to push it away for another day, to add it to their growing pile of unfinished conversations under the rug. It could mean something else.

Lafayette doesn’t know why he has this sudden wanting to talk, to talk in ways that they don’t talk. He knows exactly what John means, but asks anyway. Has to be sure.

“Just let it _go_ ,” he repeats. John’s voice catches in his throat, and he tries to mask it with an insincere-sounding laugh. Follows it with a breath that’s gasping when he inhales and shakes when he exhales, even with the care he takes to release it slowly and evenly.

The sound presses through Lafayette’s ribs, jabbing into his heart. He has to look away, has to steady his own breath in an effort to bottle the feeling down.

“I’m drunk. I’m – I’m bad drunk. I can’t. do this right now.” He coughs, turns his face away from Lafayette, turns his body as much as he can. His voice echoes against the vinyl tub. “If you’re not gonna let it go, can you just. leave.” By either assumption that Lafayette won’t, or to ensure he won’t have the chance to try and continue it, John says: “I think I want to be alone. Right now.”

“Oh.” It comes out before Lafayette can stop it. Quickly, he tries to recover, make it less jarring, make his voice sound less hurt: “I. Okay. I’ll come check on you later.” He stands to leave, stops in the doorway. “You should drink the rest of that water.”

He closes the door behind him, lets John be alone. Rather than rejoining the party, he sits on the top stair, listens to Peggy’s voice carry.

“I’m just saying! Who does he think he is, having a girlfriend that pretty. He should have warned us. He should have warned _me!_ ”

She’s talking about Theodosia, who she had spent the first half-hour of the party hitting on before being informed that she’d been flirting with Burr’s girlfriend, and that Theodosia either didn’t realize or was too friendly to shut her down. Peggy sighs miserably, heavy with drama, when her complaint is only laughed at. Eliza offers something he doesn’t quite catch, but he can hear her gentle, consoling tone.

The conversation carries on, indistinguishable with more voices talking over another. When he comes down the stairs, they fade. Between the time that he’d spent hiding in the kitchen, and upstairs with John, most of the guests had already left.

“Is Jack okay?” Peggy’s the first to speak up. She’s sitting on the floor in front of Hercules, and he’s braiding her hair while she braids Eliza’s.

“Yeah. Yes, he is. He wanted to be alone for a while.”

“That means he’s gonna puke,” Peggy tells Eliza, her voice dropped to a stage-whisper everyone can hear. “Let him be,” she continues, full-volume. “Come, sit down,” she pats the spot next to her. “We were just reliving how embarrassing I am. And how no one is surprised.”

“I thought that you knew!” Eliza exclaims. “I told you, I told you this morning that Aaron was bringing his girlfriend. Who did you think she was?”

“Why didn’t you stop me!” is what Peggy counters with.

Eliza laughs at her, then quiets. Sounds genuine when she says: “You’ll find a nice girl one day, Peggy.” There’s a pause. “Just. Not today,” she teases. Yelps when Peggy tugs at her hair in retaliation.

Lafayette sits next to Peggy, leans back against the couch and tries to let go of his body’s tension. She goes to move the conversation on as she ties off the end of Eliza’s braid. Stops when Lafayette sighs heavy. “You good, dude?” she asks instead.

“You’re just as drunk as Laurens is, aren’t you?” he asks. Her grin aims for innocence but only confirms his hunch. “I’m fine. Are _you_ good?”

Peggy stretches her arms out in front of her and sighs. Slumps back when Hercules ties off her braid. “I’m great. Mortified, but great.” She pushes Lafayette’s knees down to lay her head in his lap.

The night has essentially died down. With Laurens out of commission, Peggy drifting off while Lafayette pets her hair and scrolls through his email, of all things, and Eliza having coerced Alexander into allowing her to braid his hair, too, they’re only waiting on someone to suggest that they call it a night.

Hercules can read a room. “I don’t know about y’all,” he says – Alexander snickers, shuts up when Eliza pulls his hair – “but I think it’s about time we call it a night.” While he rallies Eliza and Alexander and his half-braided hair to clean up some of the emptied cups and general post-party mess, Lafayette nudges Peggy to try and rouse her.

“We’re leaving,” he says. “Get up. I need to get John.”

“Fuck Jack.”

Without much protest, though, she lets Lafayette help her onto her feet and up the stairs to her room.

“You’re sweet, Laf,” she tells him when she’s sitting on the edge of her bed, hand on his arm to keep him from leaving just yet. “I’m glad you ended up coming through.” With her hand curled into his sleeve, she continues: “Listen. Take care of Jack, okay? I’m counting on you.” By now, he should have learned not to question what Peggy says, or does. Lafayette’s expression curls downward – his brows knit and he frowns, doesn’t understand where she’s going with the abrupt turn to seriousness. “Just promise, okay?”

The release of his sleeve is conditional to his agreement. Once freed, he tells her to get some sleep and leaves her in her room.

He needs a readying breath before he knocks on the bathroom door. “Hey. I’m going home.” Pauses, waits for any response. “Can I come in?” There’s a muffled noise that could be a yes or a no. He opens the door anyway. “Are you okay?”

John is leaning on the tub’s edge, elbow propped up on it and head in that hand. His other arm is curled around his middle. In his defense, he looks better than he had earlier – more color in his cheeks, less of that tumble-into-alcohol poisoning look about him.

“I’m fine,” he manages to sit up, offers Lafayette both of his hands. “Help me up. I wanna go home.”

Lafayette helps him up, helps him downstairs. Helps him get into the car after they decided to call an uber instead of walking or waiting for a taxi to come by. Helps him all the way to his room when they arrive home.

“You should sleep,” he says, standing in front of John after helping him sit down on his bed. Keeps his distance.

“Yeah. Yeah. I should get some sleep,” John agrees. “Look, Gil – ”

“Sleep,” he insists. He leaves the room before John can press any further, takes his sweet time in washing off the residual grease paint around his eyes.

And though it’s late, and he’s tired, he waits until the light around John’s doorframe goes out. It runs the risk of waking John, but he leaves water and a bottle of aspirin on his bedside table. And though it only worsens the risk, he takes a moment before he goes to bed. Just a moment to stand, listen to him breathe, pull the blankets over him, and murmur a goodnight before he retires to sleep.


	6. November I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking up to a neglected routine is better than you think, even if you haven't thought about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter feels a lot like filler but,  
> john & laf have this bubble, when its just the two of them & it immediately dissipates when they're around other people for one reason or another. / it's what's exacerbated the whole mess of feelings that they're stuck in & that only gets worse when things like the halloween party happen
> 
> ANYway.   
> apologies again for the consistently inconsistent update schedule / frequency   
> but! thank you for the support on this fic, it's truly my baby. i know where we're going, it's just a matter of getting there   
> <3

As fall starts to blend into winter, bringing with it the season of midterms and heavy, overcast skies, Lafayette begins to isolate himself. Sort of. He gets up before John, makes enough coffee for the both of them, but is gone before John’s awake to drink any of it. The early mornings give him time to take more extensive notes (and even compare them with Alexander’s), time to headstart on his term papers. Less time to worry about John, less time to pine, less time to sit in his room and stare at the ceiling.

Sort of.

He comes home one day, middle of November, after spending too long trying to help an undergrad revise for an upcoming midterm. To help bide time and pay the bills, he’d taken on a tutoring job for undergraduate students. It’s only taken him weeks to realize that he should have taken Alexander’s advice against working with undergrads. But he comes home as the sun starts to set. John is home, sitting at the table, papers and textbooks spread out, computer open in front of him.

John stops short, halfway to bringing his mug to his mouth, when he sees Lafayette.

“Hey,” he says. Puts the mug down. Puts his hands on the table.

“Hey.”

“How was your day?”

“It was fine. Yours?”

John sighs, heavy. “How long are we going to keep this up?”

“Keep what up?”

“For real? Dude. How long are you going to keep ignoring me?”

Lafayette had passed the table into the kitchen, is looking through a cabinet for something to eat. Stops midway, looks across to John.

“I’m talking to you right now. How is that ignoring you?”

“Don’t play dumb, Gil.”

“I honestly don’t know what you’re meaning,” he turns to completely face him, crosses his arms.

“It’s been, like, two weeks.”

Lafayette waits for him to continue. He doesn’t. “And?”

John rolls his eyes. “Alright. Whatever, nevermind.”

He says where he is, just for a moment, watching John turn back into his work, drink his coffee, push his hair back behind his ear, before he goes back to looking at the contents of the cabinet. Suddenly, he’s not so hungry.

“Hey – ” John grabs his attention as he walks by, making to walk to his room. He looks honestly shocked that Lafayette stopped for him. He falters. “I, uh. Are we. good?”

Nerves don’t suit him. They manifest in twitchy hands, nails ripping at the skin around one thumbnail, his teeth sinking into his lower lip. His conviction fades after just a few moments of Lafayette’s silence, John drops his gaze back to his papers. It’s clear that the silence worsens him, that he doesn’t know what to make of it, isn’t sure if it’s a response or a stalling.

“Sure,” Lafayette sighs. “Yeah. Yes, we’re fine.”

John looks up again. “Gil, if – ”

“I need to study.”

He swallows down, hard, but concedes. “Okay.”

Lafayette doesn’t get much work done. He manages through the last few pages of one of his term papers, forwards it to Alexander to look over. The silence in the apartment remains unfamiliar, though recently it’s become increasingly commonplace. One of them might play music, might make noise shuffling around in the kitchen, but otherwise they’re quiet. As midterms approach and he and John both dedicate more time to their studies, the awkward tension that had built around them has developed into more of a strained, stressful quiet.

After sending the email, he watches the cursor blink in the search bar of his browser. He has something to do, always something to do.

John’s voice carries faintly from the kitchen. The walls are thin enough to hear. He’s talking on the phone. Lafayette only catches parts of his sentences, tries his best not to eavesdrop. Fails miserably.

_“I don’t know… I just,”_ there’s a pause, maybe he sighs. Maybe he’s listening to the other line. _“I just don’t know.”_

_“I’m trying. He just doesn’t want to talk to me. I don’t know, it’s been like. weeks. He says he needs to study, or whatever, and he’s never home anymore – ”_

So he’s talking about Lafayette. The next pause in John’s speaking is longer, definitely hearing someone out, and provides Lafayette with enough time to decide to stop listening. Plug in headphones, put them on, put his music on loud enough to drown it out. On the surface, it’s his nagging conscience, telling him not to listen in. The heart of the issue, though, lies with Lafayette not being sure that he wants to know what John would say about him.

He turns the volume loud enough to drown out his thoughts, too, and gives up on working through anything of substance. Eventually, he just goes to lie down, headphones in, face half-hidden in his pillowcase.

John comes into his room, later. Lafayette startles when John touches his shoulder and swears at him, pulls his headphones out.

“Jesus, sorry,” John has already flinched back, hand drawn up to his chest. “I knocked and you didn’t answer. I, um. I was going to go pick up something for dinner. Wanted to know if you wanted anything.” He pauses for a moment, relaxes only when Lafayette does. “My treat?” he offers with a small, olive branch smile.

“Whatever you want is fine.”

The smile breaks wider, and Lafayette busies himself with silencing his phone and turning off the music.

“Awesome, I’ll be right back,” the smile bleeds into his tone. John has brightened too much for the mood change to have come only from his dinner plans, but Laf doesn’t question it. Before he leaves, he looks over his shoulder: “Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

“Where would I go?”

John laughs. “I don’t know. Just saying. I’ll be right back.”

Rather than return to his sulking, Lafayette busies himself with tidying. He collects any stray items of clothing in his laundry basket, makes a note to do laundry in the next day or so. His desk is a mounting pile of paper, textbooks, and books that he had rented from the library to supplement on of his papers. Neatening it seems like entirely too much work, so he hides the mess in one of the desk drawers instead.

And then moves on to the common area of the apartment – though he leaves John’s things untouched, he cleans the kitchen and is halfway into convincing himself that yes, he does need to vacuum, when John returns.

“Hey, Laf, I’m – ” he starts to call, voice loud enough to hear across the apartment, before he realizes that Lafayette is in the living area. “Oh. Hey. Are you cleaning?”

He shrugs as he finishes folding one of their throw blankets. “Yeah, I guess,” he replies, setting it on the couch.

“You wanna do that or you wanna eat?” John smiles at him. Not a full, John-Laurens tooth-bearing grin, but a smaller one – fonder, easier, the kind that makes Laf’s chest swell a little.

“Yeah. Yes.”

John stacks his schoolwork haphazardly, making enough room for both of them to eat at the table. Over the greasy takeout, Lafayette humors him with small talk, gives him an actual recap of his day and is genuinely interested when John does the same. John talks about how he and Peggy went to Herc’s apartment after being cooped up between classes and studying all day, laughs to himself over something he’d remembered from then.

Lafayette smiles at him.

John’s looking down, poking at his food with his fork. As the laugh fades, his expression flattens out, and he doesn’t look up when he asks, “Are you okay, Gil?”

The abrupt topic change throws him off. “What?” he spits out.

“You’ve just – you’ve been acting. You’ve been off, recently. I don’t know, people have noticed.”

“ _I’ve_ noticed,” he adds, and clears his throat.

It’s less about being the topic of concerned conversation, Lafayette thinks, and more about the concern that John has.

“If you are talking about Halloween, I – ”

“No, no, not that. It’s been longer. Like, all semester, basically. Just.” John sighs when he loses his train of thought, but finally looks up to meet Lafayette’s gaze. “I don’t know. I don’t even know why I brought it up, okay?” he sounds defensive, but his shoulders slump. “I just. I worry about you, sometimes.”

“I’m okay, John,” Lafayette assures him.

John’s expression lacks any attempt of shielding – with his lip drawn between his teeth, his eyebrows pulling up at the bridge of his nose, he looks like he wants to say something more. Lafayette notices that he’s put down his fork, taking instead to pulling at the hangnail on one thumbnail.

“Okay,” he relents, swallowing his words down and forcing his expression to even out. “I think. I think I’m gonna take a break,” he changes the subject again, if only to prove that he’s done with the conversation. “Watch a movie, or something,” he muses aloud.

This time, John busies himself with cleaning up. Asks Lafayette if he’s done before he closes up the Styrofoam takeout containers and stows them away in the fridge, throws away the empties and the plastic bags and plastic utensils.

He stands in the open space between the counter and the table, facing Lafayette, when he asks: “Will you watch a movie with me?”

There’s no small smile, no change in his expression, but Lafayette’s chest swells again and there’s no way he can say no. So they put a movie on, something that John says he’s been meaning to watch, and unfold all of the blankets that Laf had cleaned up and make a nest on the couch. John tucks close to his side, and only settles in more when Lafayette puts his arm over the cushion. It’s not long before it slips down, curls around him, keeps him where he is.

They don’t get very far into the movie – only to the part where the plot has begun to build, tension between characters becoming evident but not boiling over – before John dozes off, falls asleep leaning into Lafayette’s warmth.

It’s sweet, and his pulse flutters, and he finally sees the weariness that’s weighed on John: the fatigue-bruised bags under his eyes, the faint crinkle of his forehead that hasn’t eased even in sleep. Lafayette smooths over it with his thumb until John’s expression relaxes, gently eases him so he’s resting in his lap instead of half-against his chest. And he lets him sleep through the whole movie, though Lafayette doesn’t fully process it. He spends more time petting John’s hair, gently massaging his fingertips against his scalp and running his fingers through the full length of his hair. It’s rare that John keeps his hair down.

He stays there, on their couch, even after the credits roll and the TV prompts him to start playing a different movie. Lafayette lets the main menu come back, as it does after a certain time of idling, because reaching for the remote would risk rousing John from his sleep. He lets the silence drag on into previews for upcoming movies, trailers for the new releases that will be available to watch in the coming months.

Even that doesn’t wake John.

He’s thankful for it, satisfied with how they are, with sitting and petting his hair and listening to his slow, even breaths. It can’t last, and Lafayette knows this.

He keeps the moment just a while longer before he shakes John’s shoulder. “Hey,” he says, quiet. “Hey, wake up,” he urges when John only makes a sleepy noise and shifts, hides his face in Lafayette’s shirt.

“What time is it?” he asks, voice rough with sleep and muffled against Laf’s stomach.

“Late. I don’t know. You fell asleep during the movie.”

“I figured as much.”

“You should go to bed,” Lafayette tells him.

John doesn’t seem to hear, or chooses to ignore him, as he shifts to lie on his back and look up at him. “You just let me sleep?” he asks.

“Yes. You were tired. Go to bed, John.”

He hesitates, clears the sleep out of his throat. Almost falls into that nervous habit of biting his lip before saying: “Come with me.”

And it kills him, sinks that feeling down from his sternum to the pit of his stomach, but Laf has to shake his head. “I’m going to try to get some work done.”

John’s expression twists, settles on a stifled frown, is overcome by a half-stifled yawn. “Fine,” he winds up saying. Sits up at eye level with Lafayette, and just looks at him. The movie previews go through their loop again; the colors that flash on the TV behind him only distract Lafayette for a moment while John just looks. He pushes farther back into the couch cushion when John puts one hand on his shoulder and lets it curl into his shirt. Lafayette thinks, for a moment, that John might kiss him but instead, he makes a quiet request: “Don’t leave early, tomorrow. Please?”

His grip on Lafayette’s shirt tightens, only slightly, but he feels it.

“Okay.” Only slightly, but it’s enough to urge him into agreeing. “Okay, I won’t.”

The assurance seems to quell him, whatever is causing John’s budding tension, and he gives that small, fond smile again.

“Thanks. I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

John leaves the nest. Lafayette listens to his feet shuffle against the floor, listens to the faucet run when he brushes his teeth, listens to his door close behind him. And realizes very soon that he will not be getting any work done tonight.

That smile is stuck in his mind, along with the way John’s voice sounds when he wakes up and how he shuts his eyes hard to will away the dryness of sleep. Lafayette turns off the television, and the lights, goes and brushes his teeth, returns to his room. Tells himself that he’ll try and do something, keep himself busy until he settles, and opens the drawer that he’d hidden his coursework in.

After twenty minutes of sitting and organizing papers, he has to give up, tell himself that he’ll get his work done tomorrow. In the morning. In the afternoon.

Morning comes without the sun. In its place is John and his bright smile and, more importantly, two cups of coffee in his hand. “Sit up,” he tells Lafayette. “Scoot over.” He sits in Lafayette’s bed cautiously, careful not to spill the coffee, and hands him one of the mugs. “It’s amazing what a full eight hours of sleep will do for you.”

“Huh. Wonder what that’s like,” Lafayette half-scoffs before taking a generous sip from his coffee. Rubs sleep from one eye. The effort yields little reward and his eyes still slip mostly closed, even as he sits up and drinks his coffee.

“Are you doing anything tonight?”

“I am studying with Alexander.”

“Man, at this rate you’re seeing more of Ham than I am.”

“He’s told me that you two get lunch every day. I don’t see him every day.”

“Yeah. Well. That’s not the point.”

Lafayette tells him _mhm_ , closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Sighs it out. It’s involuntary but cathartic and helps him wake up a little more.

“You wanna make breakfast?” he’s asked, eventually. Lafayette’s agreement is conditional to finishing his coffee, first, and John yields to it. “It’s almost eight, though, so hurry up.”

John quiets, mostly. Lafayette can hear the hollow noise of his fingertips drumming against the side of his half-full mug. “I’ll let you wake up. I’m gonna shower real quick.”

If he gets the first shower, John almost always takes almost all of the hot water. It only reinforces Lafayette’s decision to wait out for his body to wake up more, and doesn’t move from his spot until he’s fully finished his coffee and the hiss of the shower has long stopped. Today, John makes breakfast. Starts when Lafayette gets in the shower, calls him to the kitchen while he’s getting dressed.

“I almost burned the eggs,” he tells Laf when he comes into the kitchen. “ _Almost._ So don’t complain.”

“Almost burned eggs are my favorite,” Lafayette tells him. Earns a dirty look.

“At least you’re awake,” John mutters as he sets the plate of food on the table. There’s no malice, in his tone. He might be a little relieved, seeing Laf’s old self bleeding through this morning. Or maybe he’s just glad to not be eating breakfast alone. They eat off of the one plate, avoiding the actually burned bits of egg and bacon and potato as they go.

“We’re going to be late.” Lafayette states, when they’ve finished eating and he catches the time on the stove’s digital clock.

“We’ve got, like, ten minutes. Go get your stuff, I’ll rinse the dishes.”

He doesn’t forget a coat, takes half a second to double check that he grabbed the right books, before he goes back to the kitchen. John is buttoning up his own coat when he nears their apartment door.

As they walk, it’s Laf that starts the conversation. “Why did you not want me to leave early?”

John squints despite the sun being sufficiently covered by heavy overcast, shrugs with his hands stuck into his coat pockets. “I missed you,” he says. Laughs at himself. “I don’t know, we always used to leave together and stuff. Wanted that back, I guess.”

Lafayette isn’t sure what he had expected, but it wasn’t that. The response takes him off guard as much as the question had taken John – he’s just worse at hiding the startle. Getting better, though, at pushing down the emotion, evening his expression out.

“Oh,” he says, despite his efforts to cap it off.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” John keeps talking. “Creature of habit, routine, whatever. Maybe. Who knows.” He shrugs more fully, takes his hands out of his pockets. Maybe he isn’t so good at quelling it, either, Lafayette thinks, and looks on across the street they’re waiting to cross.

It’s a short walk to the subway from their apartment.

“Maybe,” Lafayette echoes.

They part ways on the train. John takes it one more stop to get to his campus, and tugs on Lafayette’s sleeve when the PA announces that they’re coming up to his stop through the crackling static of the aging system. Laf looks at him, expectant; they haven’t talked much of substance since leaving the apartment. John had rambled as he does, as a nicer way for nerves to become him. The effort of getting Lafayette’s full attention, though, is different.

“Have a good day,” John smiles.

“You, too,” Lafayette says before the doors open, before the people flood out and he has to fall into step with them.


	7. November II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John leaves, Lafayette makes some plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! apologies for the long wait for this update. but - things are starting to pick up here. a lot of what's happened so far has been build up and exploring john&laf's weird relationship-thing. but i digress! 
> 
> i would also like to thank everyone who has left kudos, it means a lot to me! <3

The morning provides them something more of normalcy – John texts him periodically through the day, more frequently when Lafayette has met up with Alexander at their usual spot. While Lafayette is finally getting through the work that he’d put off last night and Alexander has headed home for some engagement with the Schuylers, John shows up. Big grin, coffee in hand.

Lafayette hasn’t noticed him. Doesn’t notice when John sets his coffee down on top of his notes. Does notice when John leans one hand against the back of his chair and curls his other arm around Lafayette’s shoulders.

He knows it’s John without looking. Maybe from the remnants of the cologne he wears hanging around him. Maybe because no one else would come up and hug him from behind like that.

“Ham told me I’d find you here,” he says, smile bled into his voice. Maybe because Alexander had just left, and he and Alexander are in more constant communication than Lafayette has seen elsewhere.

He pulls back a little, squeezes Lafayette’s shoulder. He rubs small circles into the muscle there, trailing to the curve of his bicep.

“Hi, John.” Lafayette tips his head back to look at him.

“You look tired,” John tells him. Pulls over the chair that Alexander left empty and sits down. Puts his elbows on the table, chin in his hands. Scoots forward a little, peers over at what Lafayette has been working on. Reading, reading; he feels as though he’s read more this year than he has in the past five and John very quickly loses interest in reading it over.

“I am tired,” he agrees quietly, slowly. Speaking and writing or reading at the same time is hard, sometimes, and he has to pay too much attention to both tasks. In the pause that follows, he looks over at John. “I was up later than I wanted to be last night.”

His words are only met with a smile.

“Lemme make it up to you,” he says, leaning forward. Drops his hands onto the table. Presses his knee into the side of Lafayette’s thigh. “I’ll buy you dinner. Well. I already bought you dinner. I’ll heat up the leftovers for you, free of charge,” he grins.

What a stud.

Despite himself, Laf can’t help but smile at the offer and sighs, looks down at his hands. At his long empty mug.

“I’ll take you up on that,” he says. Then clears his throat. “But, I need to finish this first.”

John sighs at him, exaggerated and heavy and he tips his face down into the crook of his elbow.

“You’ve been here, like, all day.” He laments, muffled by his arm.

Lafayette laughs at him. “I only have this much work because you took me away from it last night.”

John is not as amused. He turns his head enough to look at Lafayette without lifting it, and frowns. That one piece of hair has fallen out of his tie again, falls across his cheekbone and curls into the hollow beneath it. As Lafayette meets his gaze, the pull of his smile fades. The table is small, made for two and their things put in front of them. He’s close enough to touch, leg still pushed up against Lafayette’s.

He reaches over. With a ginger touch, he pushes the tendril behind his ear with his first two fingers. When his fingertips brush against John’s temple, his eyes close, and when he pulls his hand away, John reaches up and curls his hand around Lafayette’s fingers. Presses their palms together.

It’s unexpected, but he doesn’t pull away. Lets John keep his hand, but keeps to his work. Smiles to himself, again, when John plays with his fingers and traces the lines of his palm.

“Hey,” he says, eventually, and pulls on Laf’s hand.

“Yes?”

He shrugs a little, looks down at their hands, squeezes lightly. It’s weird. Not bad – but unfamiliar, this kind of quiet intimacy. Public, even if no one is watching.

“I don’t know,” John winds up saying. Might have just wanted Lafayette’s attention back.

Laf breathes in, exhales in a quiet sigh. “You want to get going?” he asks. Might only be trying to appease him.

“Do you want to get going?” he asks back.

“Yeah. Yes, it’s fine.” He closes his laptop and finally pulls his hand away from John to pack up his things. Moves John’s coffee off of his papers, tucks them back into a folder.

John grins. Got his way.

They’re close enough to walk back to their apartment. John surprises him – takes his hand back when they fall into step and knocks his shoulder against Lafayette’s arm.

“So. I was thinking. I want to go somewhere warm this winter.” John starts talking idly, as he does. Lafayette nods politely, responds when a response is expected, as he does. “Imagine. White sandy beaches, the ocean…” he sighs dreamily.

“Are you not going home?”

Whatever day dream John had been on shatters, and he frowns up at Lafayette. “It’s cold there, too, man. Can’t go swimming in the winter.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been.”

“I know, I know.” John sighs, wistful: “We should go somewhere nice.” He gives a smile, bites his lip before he turns his gaze down the walk. “The beach, the ocean. Spending all day sunbathing,” he trails off.

“Where is this coming from?” Lafayette asks him, pausing as he fishes his keys out of his coat pocket. Unlocks the door, lets John lead him inside by the hand.

“Winter is coming,” John says plainly, turning to glance at him as they start the walkup to their apartment.

“You love the snow.”

“Sometimes. Usually.” A big sigh. Half a shrug with one outstretched palm, the other pulling Laf’s hand forward. “I think it’d just be nice.” When he drops Lafayette’s hand, it’s just to ask for his keys.

They shed coats and shoes at the door; Lafayette stows them in the closet by the door and, as he closes it, looks over at John. Something comes over him and pushes up through his throat and out his mouth before he can stop it: “What are we doing?”

John blinks at him. Recoils a little, with one hand curled defensively against his chest. He starts to speak, but it comes out weak and he has to clear his throat. Tries again: “What? What do you mean?”

Even though he asks, John doesn’t let him speak. Laughs before he can get his word in, follows it with, “Not going on some tropical vacation, or whatever,” he says, like the question was about his dreamy musing about a warm place and fruity cocktails.

“That’s not what I am – ”

“When do you want to eat?” John asks as he turns away, walks into the kitchen, leans over into the fridge. “We still have a few beers – you want one?” There’s an offering glance, as he uses his hip to keep the door open and both hands to retrieve the bottles. He stretches to put them on the counter and pulls out the leftover containers.

Lafayette sighs, follows him, resigns himself enough to twist the caps off of the bottles for him.

“Can we – ”

“Can we not, Gil?” John straightens to look him in the eye. “You said we’re fine, can’t we just be fine?”

Lafayette pauses. Looks down at him, looks at his eyes. Looks him in the eye. “Okay, okay,” he concedes. “Okay.”

He concedes for the entire time that they spend in the kitchen, at the table, eating. Lafayette nurses his beer but gives it to John to finish. When he hands it over he says something, something about going to lie down because he’s tired. He doesn’t hear John follow him, leaving the empty bottles and plates at the table.

“What are you doing?” Laf asks when John climbs into bed with him.

“Keeping you company.”

He keeps himself propped up with one arm buckled behind him, tilts his head to the side, says okay and doesn’t make him leave.

“Come here,” John says. “We’re fine.” The assurance is followed with John scooting closer when Lafayette doesn’t move, with John pushing his arm forward and sitting behind him. Legs on either side of him, John pushes him forward with both palms so he’s sitting up straight. “Relax, Gil.”

John presses his thumbs into the tense muscle of Lafayette’s shoulders. He presses harder, and the strong, even pressure that he provides elicits a sigh out of him. John starts at his shoulders and works his way down, following the curve of his spine down to where it meets his pelvis.

“You’re still really tense,” John tells him when he stops. When he leans forward and presses his cheek against the space between Laf’s shoulder blades and puts his hands on his sides. With his fingertips, he traces the seam of his shirt. John nuzzles against his shoulder, and he sighs again. Heavier this time, out of the emotion that just keeps coming back, the one that’s taken up residence under his sternum and refuses to leave.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

John curls his arms around him. His breath seeps warmth through Lafayette’s shirt. He presses ginger kisses against his shoulder, against the back of his neck.

His exhaled breath is shaky.

Lafayette reaches up, finds John’s hands where they’re clasped against his chest. He traces John’s knuckles. “You know. If we keep only _saying_ that we’re fine, we might not be fine.”

He can hear John swallow. Feels him when he turns his head to hide his face in his shirt.

“Yeah, I know,” he says.

Acknowledgment is the first step, maybe. The conversation doesn’t move further though; instead, they both quiet. Listen to their breathing and John can hear Lafayette’s heartbeat from his place, pressed against him and nestled against the nape of his neck.

Neither of them talk because the answer, the one they both know, to _“What are we doing?”_ is _“I don’t know, I don’t know.”_

Lafayette thinks about Hercules, thinks about their conversation, and thinks about taking him up on his offer. Having an outlet, a place to get out all the things that are piling up inside his chest, could be good for him. He shifts his arm to rest over John’s, keeps his hand where it is, hovering over John’s.

“You know. I’m leaving soon,” John tells him. Out of the blue.

“What?”

“Thanksgiving. My dad’s flying me down for a long weekend.”

“Oh. Okay.” Lafayette moves his hand, rests it on his knee instead.

John squeezes him around his middle. It feels like an apology. Lafayette swallows hard, forcing something down.

“It’s only a couple days,” John reasons. It feels more like an apology.

“We’ve been apart for more than a couple days,” Lafayette says it like he’s being ridiculous. Like he’s questioning why either of them would be upset by a few days away from one another.

“Yeah. Yeah, whatever,” he mimics the dismissive tone. “I was just saying, that’s all.”

John sits back, pulls his arms from around Lafayette and puts his palms against the muscle of his back. Traces his fingers down a few inches. Sighs when he leans back into the pillows and hugs his arms around himself, curling his hands around his arms.

“I need to pack for that,” he says to the room. “I need to do it early, or I’m going to forget something.”

“Don’t you still have a week?”

“Something like that.”

Predictably, John doesn’t pack until the day that he’s due to leave. He rushes between getting ready – taking a rare short shower, and packing a carry-on sized bag with a towel wrapped around his waist. His hair is half dry by the time he’s gotten dressed, beginning to fill into its volume. He really has more of a hard-to-manage mane if he doesn’t catch it in time, and it’s inching there as he stands in the kitchen, leaning on the counter and willing the toaster to go faster.

“You said you were going to pack early,” Lafayette says. Drinks coffee. John’s noisy rush had woken him up earlier, and he’d resigned to sitting in the kitchen and slowly coming around.

“I know, but we both know who I am as a person,” John looks over at him. “And that person is irresponsible and has poor time management skills.”

The toast pops. John has already finished his coffee, drank most of it with a badly burned tongue, but will probably buy more at the airport anyway. He spreads butter on the toast and takes it with him back to his room to finish packing. Though it’s only for a weekend, he seems to be stressing over the event. Lafayette hasn’t pried.

Though, he might ask later. After the fact, when gentle questions won’t make John feel worse about the coming days.

It’s not long before John comes back into the common area with his carry-on. He sets it by the door and takes to finally tying his hair back. He’s wearing sweats and a t-shirt and slip on sneakers and does bother to find his coat in the closet.

“I’m, uh, I gotta get going,” he says to Lafayette. Holds his jacket in his hands. “My ride’s here, I think, and. Yeah.” His smile is sheepish, and brief, and he looks down quickly.

Lafayette has never heard much about John’s family – only that he has a small army of younger siblings, and that he loves his immediate family very much. That much he’s inferred from the frequency in John’s visits home, and the occasional phone calls with his father that always end with take care of yourself, Dad.

 John sets his coat down. Lafayette had gotten up to wash his emptied mug, but before he can turn on the faucet, John closes the space between them and puts a hand on his arm.

“Hey,” he starts. Leaves it unfinished because he doesn’t have anything to say when Lafayette turns his attention to him.

He smiles at John, takes on an expectant look. “Yes?”

“I. I just.” John sighs. Both hands on Lafayette’s arms. He uses the leverage to pull him a little closer. “Come here,” he says.

John kisses him. Slow, even, steady. He tries to be brief, pulling back without allowing Lafayette to kiss him properly, but Laf catches his jaw in his hand and keeps him there. Kisses him again. Again, again. John pushes his shoulders, stopping him effectively. His breath comes out in a laugh.

“I have to go. I can’t miss my flight. I’ll. I’ll call you?” In his pause, he tries to gauge Lafayette’s reaction. Watches his eyes. “I’ll call you,” he says again, more definitively. “Bye, Gil.”

He touches the back of Lafayette’s hand, the one still holding his face, before he turns away. Gathers his bag and coat and then he’s gone, door pulling closed behind him. Lafayette watches him, reminds himself that it’s only for a few days – however it may make him feel to have to do so. Shakes his head at himself as he turns off the lights in the common area and goes back to his room.

He has a few new text messages from Alexander, as well as a voicemail.

_“Hey, Laf, it’s Alex – listen. Eliza’s dad is coming into town for Thanksgiving, or whatever, and she told me to invite you. You know, if you wanted to. Open invite. She’s making mulled wine and there’s going to be a ton of free, homecooked food. So, yeah. Let us know if you’re coming.”_

It’s brief. Different, for Alexander. He’s also more keen to talk about the historical significance of why the Thanksgiving holiday shouldn’t be celebrated – but, perhaps there’s an exception to the weekend that he’ll finally be meeting Eliza’s father.

Lafayette accepts the invitation. The emptiness of the apartment has already settled in, worse now with the knowledge that it will be days before it’s occupied and not so quiet. He still doesn’t know how Laurens managed to live alone for as long as he did, or why Hercules prefers to have a roommate that’s rarely seen, rarely heard.

He needs the quiet bustle, the idle noise that another person creates. The restless feeling makes him quick to accept Alexander’s request to come by early, the day of the dinner, to hang out.

Even with the provisional plans, it leaves the rest of his day empty. He settles into nothing, sits in the remnants of the blanket nest from the other night, catches up on an episode of a show he’s been meaning to watch all the way through but hasn’t had the time.

John texts him: _I forgot my phone charger._

Lafayette smiles. Tells him _you’ll live_ , and wishes him a safe flight home. Doesn’t mention the kiss, the kitchen, anything. John must have already boarded, because he doesn’t respond after that. Lafayette puts his phone away, tries to focus on the show, on remembering the plot where he’d last left it off.

The few hours before John calls allow him to finish the season. When his phone comes to life, buzzing on the arm of the couch, he lets it. Picks up at the beginning of the third ring and says hello.

_“Hey, just letting you know I landed. Safe and sound.”_

“Good, good,” Lafayette doesn’t know what else to say.

_“What did you do today? What time is it there?”_

“I am still in New York, John. We’re in the same time zone.”

John laughs. _“I know, I was joking. Jeez.”_

Silence falls over them. Faintly, in the background, Lafayette can hear the roll of engines and the sound of wind through a cracked window. “Shouldn’t you be spending time with your family?” he winds up asking.

 _“Uh. Not yet, I literally landed like – fifteen? minutes ago, give or take. We’re driving there now. I’ve got. I’ve got some time.”_ There’s another lapse, this one shorter, because John starts talking again, this time fast and nervous, when Lafayette doesn’t: _“I could. Are you busy? You’re probably doing something, aren’t you. I should have just texted you, shouldn’t I?”_

“No, no. No, I’m not. Doing anything.” Lafayette pauses the episode.

_“Okay. Okay. Are you going to the thing with Ham? He told me about it but, y’know, I’m here, not there.”_

“Yes, he invited me. I’m going.”

_“Send Philip my love.”_

Lafayette snorts. “I didn’t realize you were on a first name basis with Mr. Schuyler.”

_“Peggy said I could call him that. She thinks Mr. Schuyler makes him sound old. Which, like, he is, but older than he is. You know?”_

“Sure.”

The line makes a droning beep. John’s end fills with some static when he shifts and he sighs. _“My dad’s calling me.”_

“It’s okay. You can call me later.”

_“Okay. Talk to you later.”_

The line goes dead after they say their goodbyes, and Lafayette sighs to himself, to the room.


	8. November III / September 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> God, you're lovesick, aren't you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like every time i make an update i'm apologizing for the length between chapters, so y'all should really be used to it by now but - (i just moved and my only source of internet is the coffee shops that i can leech wifi from)
> 
> anyway - here's another chapter! it gives some more insight into john&laf's early stages 
> 
> (also ! i havent plugged my tumblr yet, but if youre interested - follow me @ starphrase!)

Alexander shows up earlier than Lafayette expected he would. He continues to claim that John had given him the spare key, but Lafayette remains convinced that Alexander had a copy made just to come and go as he pleases. Which, all things considered, isn’t frequent or an annoyance. Just startling, to find someone in your presumably empty kitchen, rummaging through your fridge.

“Alexander, it’s nine in the morning.”

“Yes, it is. Didn’t you get my message? I told you I was going to come over.”

“Um, no, I didn’t,” he trails off. Trails back into his bedroom and retrieves his phone from where it charges at his desk. Comes back to Alexander as he sorts through his unread notifications.

“You need to go grocery shopping,” he’s told when he returns. Alexander gives him a sidelong glance. “You have coffee, and cereal, and one beer. And some rice.”

“Eventually. Soon. Did you at least make coffee?” he asks, leaning forward to try and spy the carafe of the coffee maker.

“No. I can, if you want,” Alexander is already shuffling back to the fridge to find the bag of grounds from one of the shelves on its door.

“Please.” Lafayette leans with his elbows on the counter and rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“You’ve never been a morning person, have you.”

Lafayette only shakes his head while he pulls a cup from one of the cabinets. Fills it with water from the tap. The cold water will have to tide him over until the coffee’s ready; he drinks it quickly. Sleep had left his eyes and his mouth dry, that cotton feeling scratching at the roof of his mouth and the back of his throat.

“How do you take your coffee?” Alexander asks him when the pot finishes brewing and emits a high-pitched alert.

And he has to think, for a second, because the only other person who routinely makes him coffee is John, and John stopped needing to ask how he takes his coffee a long time ago.

“Um. Just cream. Is fine.”

Soon enough, Alexander is passing the mug – _John’s_ mug, the one with the big, yellow flowers painted all over it – into his hand. Alexander eyes him. “How much sleep did you even get?”

“Enough,” he answers as he blows gently over the rim of the mug before taking a tentative first sip. It doesn’t burn his mouth, and the second is more generous. “I don’t have anything to be losing sleep over.”

Alexander’s head tips to one side. “I never said that you did.”

“You could have been getting there,” he says, and waves his hand dismissively. Lafayette changes the topic of conversation: “When are we going to the Schuylers?”

“Eleven or so,” Alexander answers. “Mr. Schuyler should be arriving soon, but Eliza told me to let him get settled before we show up.”

“Why are you here _now_?” Lafayette asks him. It’s hours earlier than he’d wanted to be awake today – on one of his first days off since the summer, on the first full day of an empty apartment, and maybe he’d wanted to be alone, for a little bit. Even more, he wanted to sleep in after weeks of rising with the sun and clocking long hours in the campus libraries before the bustle of rush hour began.

“I thought that maybe we could – ”

“If you say work, Alexander, I swear to all that is – ”

“Laf, we only have a few weeks left in the semester. We really should start – ”

Lafayette walks away from him. Takes his coffee with him. “I’m going to shower, Alexander,” he says, half over his shoulder and half into the air. “You’d better not be color coordinating my notes when I get back.”

He takes a long shower. One that could rival John’s. John, who can spend up to an hour standing under hot water until his shoulders and chest go red and his hands prune. He finishes his coffee and rinses it in the bathroom sink, sets it aside to deal with later.

John’s things are gone from the counter. His toothbrush, his deodorant, his cologne. His absence, even for these few days, feels like a drastic shift in their small living space. The small promise of _only a couple days_ feels equally comforting and far off. Lafayette swallows down the tightness in his throat and shakes some of the clinging water droplets from his hair. As he tries not to think about it, tries not to focus on how he’s gotten stuck on John Laurens, Alexander’s voice rings from the common area.

“For real dude, I’m dying out here. How _long_ does it take you?”

It prompts him out of the rut, pushes him through the rest of his morning routine until he finds one of John’s sweaters strewn carelessly over his headboard. Tries to remember when it got there.

“It’s a wonder you aren’t late.” Alexander has made residence on their couch; he’s settled into the nest of blankets that weren’t tidied, will probably never be.

“We have two hours. Even if we tried, we couldn’t be late.”

He sits on the arm of the couch, rests the heel of one foot on its frame, and watches as Alexander flips through shows and movies on their television. They don’t settle on something. Alexander heaves a great sigh and lies all the way back, lies with his head on the pillows that are pressed against the side of the couch opposite to Lafayette.

“Are you nervous?” Laf has to break the silence. A silent Alexander is akin to an omen, a sign of things to come.

“I’m meeting the parents. Parent. Father. Haven’t you ever met the parents?”

Lafayette looks away from him, twists his lips and digs his teeth against the inside of his cheek. His muttered _um, no,_ is awkward mixed with sullen. The change in demeanor is cause enough for Alexander to sit upright, to peer at him.

“Wait, are you for real?” he asks. “How long have you been single for?”

He almost flinches at the question; his eyes first go a little wide, then he narrows them towards the floor.

Alexander pulls one leg up, hugs it to his chest and tilts his head. The gears are turning and you can almost see them, working away behind his eyes.

“You know, come to think of it, I don’t think you’ve dated anyone for as long as I’ve known you.”

\---

House parties are by far, the greatest sin of the college experience. The festivities are a muddy conglomerate of all the things parents ask their children to abstain from as they drop them off at the dorms. Alcohol, sweaty body shots, sitting in windowsills and passing around a blunt, pretending not to cough. As the night progresses, it tips half into gone-too-far and half into sneaking away, into unoccupied bedrooms – or, worse, bathrooms, closets. It has edged past midnight and into this territory, and Lafayette is blissfully, wonderfully drunk.

A girl from his economics class is chatting him up, touching his arm, smiling up at him and he’s into it until he catches Laurens across the room. Faint anger sours his whole expression, pulls his shoulders noticeably taunt, and a hand pulls him hard enough to slosh his drink.

The girl follows his gaze. “You know that guy?”

“One of them,” he says. A beat. The music pulses in his silence. “Excuse me,” he apologizes before crossing the room, weaving the crowd to where John and the other man stand at the foot of the stairs. Puts his hand on John’s shoulder.

As Laurens tries to shrug him off, he’s halfway into snapping _fuck off_ – in Lafayette’s direction before he speaks up: “Is everything okay, here?”

He feels some of the tension ease out of John’s shoulders.

The other guy looks Lafayette over and puffs out his chest despite being at a noticeable bodily disadvantage should more heat be brought to the disagreement than what already lingers.

“Who’s this?” he spits. “This your boyfriend? Is that why you wouldn’t – ”

John’s hand finds the Lafayette’s, the one he’d put on his shoulder, and takes it with purpose. “Yeah, maybe he is, what’s it to you?”

The statement wasn’t bait. Laurens takes it and runs with it. As the man’s face falls, fumbles with a glaze of surprise, he’s obviously been taken off guard. He blinks once, twice, and stammers on his words.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

John says _come on, baby,_ and Lafayette’s heart swells in his chest. Swells through his ribs. Spreads its warmth there and John pulls him along, pulls him as he weaves through the crowd. Sweaty bodies, drunk bodies. Pretending to be John’s boyfriend feels natural.

Whatever they’d had during the summer had faded as autumn came over New York. At some point, John had stopped pulling him by the arm, by the shirt, by the beltloops. He tries to remind himself of this, that their fling had been nothing but a short-lived summer thing – not bearing the line into courtship or romance, just the infrequent hookups and nights over and one night stands that it had been.

He stops reminding himself of that when John calls him _babe,_ says it even though they’re well out of earshot from the guy that had been giving him trouble, with no need to keep up any kind of ruse. He forgets about it completely when John touches his arm like the girl from his econ class had, when he draws closer and kisses his neck and pushes him into the kitchen to get a drink.

\---

“I’ve been single for a while,” Lafayette says with a tone that’s meant to urge Alexander off of his back. Rather than keep him at bay, the admittance only pulls Alexander’s attention more strongly.

“You crushin’ on someone, Laf?” he grins. He groans and puts his face in his hands. Now he’s done it. “Let me guess! Let me guess. I can help you out, dude.”

“I don’t think that you – ”

“Who is it?”

“No one, Alexander. No. I’m not. Just, no.”

Alexander grumbles at him. “You’re no fun. Serious, I could help you out if you need help wooing someone.” He’s still grinning despite Laf’s refusal, leaning forward with his chin on his knees.

“Alexander, please.”

It’s nothing against him, but Alexander remains as the last person he wants to discuss any of his feelings towards Laurens with. He’s notoriously unable to maintain a secret, and if John knew that Laf’s intentions went beyond the occasional night together, beyond the casual way they’ve been interacting and touching and fucking. If John knew, Lafayette isn’t sure what would happen, exactly.

“Do I know them?” he asks. When Lafayette hesitates, Alexander’s entire face brightens. “I do, don’t I.”

“Alexander. Shut up.”

It’s only in Alexander’s nature to not shut up. He bothers Lafayette about it through the rest of the morning, through even the car that they take from the apartment to the Schuyler’s townhouse. His only savior is Eliza, who pulls Alexander away almost immediately upon their arrival. While Alex is nothing but nerves about his meeting her father, she’s elated – grinning when they come in and kissing Alexander’s face and lips before telling him to _come on,_ and pulling him into the kitchen.

Angelica and Peggy are sitting on the couch, with their feet up and hands folded on their stomachs. They each offer him a greeting and a smile – Angelica’s small and friendly as Peggy beams at him.

“We’ve been banned from the kitchen,” Angelica says.

Peggy hums her confirmation. “Uh huh. I nearly sliced my hand open and Angie burned the green beans. Dad’s taking over and Liza’s helping him.” She pats the open space on the couch. “Sit with us.”

He takes up the offer, sits more stiffly than they do, and sighs. “Just. Keep Alexander away from me.”

Angelica laughs – her laugh is full and hearty, like Peggy’s, and she manages to stifle it with the back of her hand. It’s brief, and she stays in a fit of giggles as she asks, “God, what did he do to you?”

He only shakes his head, might make some excuse, might blame it on the nerves that Hamilton harbors regarding their father.

“Eliza’s the apple of his eye,” she agrees. “Alex is alright. He’ll probably like him.”

He does. Mr. Schuyler – Philip, he insists on, not far from the informality that John had described him with, is as warm as his daughters. He serves food with big, hearty portions and asks Lafayette the same questions he asks Alexander. He takes to calling him Gil when Eliza uses the diminutive and trades stories with his daughters about their late mother.

Lafayette hadn’t known that, hadn’t known that they’d lost their mother young, but nods when they talk about her and smile warm and fond and sad.

He’s still at the Schuyler’s townhouse when John calls him again. Lafayette is polite enough to excuse himself – even pushing in his chair – before he answers the phone.

 _“Hi,”_ John greets him when the line stops ringing and the dull receiving tone hums.

“Hi, John,” he echoes. Walks away from the pas that leads into the kitchen and takes up space by the front door. Watches cars pass on the street.

 _“I miss you,”_ he says. John’s voice is thick with alcohol. He’s drunk and it bleeds into his words.

“We talked yesterday,” there’s an attempt to reason, but it falls unheard, unlistened to, fruitless.

_“I know, I know. I miss you.”_

“Are you okay?”

_“Never better. How’s Philip?”_

Lafayette laughs. Briefly, he imagines John – all his drunk enthusiasm, big grin, boisterous laugh – interacting with Philip Schuyler. He’d probably feed off his energy like he does Peggy’s; when they two are together, drunk or happy, they only seem to press each other further into the emotion. Chasing that feeling, he thinks that John is rather hedonistic.

“He’s. nice.” The words fall lame, as if he’d had to choose the word carefully.

This time, John laughs. _“That bad?”_

“No, no. No, he is nice. Different, than I thought he’d be. I think he is a lot like Peggy.”

John hums in agreement. He asks about Alexander, about the bundle of nerves he’d been carrying in anticipation of meeting Eliza’s father. They agree quietly that Angelica, and her deliberate way of catching Alexander off-guard and locking eyes with him, is by far the most intimidating of the Schuyler family. She’s protective of her fair-hearted, mild-mannered sister.

 _“I miss you, Gil,”_ John says again, after their phone call has gone far too long. After John has brushed off multiple attempts by people on his end of the line to pull him back into festivities.

“It’s only a few days,” he says. Repeats John’s words.

This is harder than either of them expected, intended, and Lafayette didn’t realize that a weekend away would leave such a void in its wake.

_“I know. I just. I do.”_

“I know,” he agrees, quietly, eventually.

John makes a muffled noise, masks it with a cough. His inhale shakes.

“Are you crying?”

 _“What? What – no – I just – ”_ his voice wavers, then breaks. He laughs to cover it and says, bordering on miserable, _“No, I just. Have something in my eye.”_

“John – ” he’s frowning. His tone is frowning and he sighs, heavy. John sputters. Coughs again. “If something is wrong, I wish you’d tell me.”

 _“Nothing’s wrong,”_ he manages. _“Really. Promise.”_

“Okay,” he says with a careful level of reservation. “Okay.”

_“I’m keeping you from the party, aren’t I?”_

“No, no. No, it’s fine.” Lafayette doesn’t want to let him go, yet. But the conversation has been effectively killed by its progression, and both lines go silent. “When are you coming home?”

_“Soon. Um, Sunday. Yeah, Sunday.”_

“Hey, Gil?” Eliza’s voice comes from behind him before she catches his elbow with a gentle hand. “Everything okay?” she asks.

He smiles kind. Forced. “Yes, I’m fine,” he tells her.

 _“I’m gonna let you get back,”_ John says in his other ear. _“Bye, Gil. I. I’ll see you Sunday.”_

“You’ve been out here for a while,” Eliza says in the middle of John’s sentence. Her voice cuts him off, keeps Lafayette from saying goodbye before John hangs up on him. “I just wanted to check in.”

He sighs as he pockets his phone. “John called. I thought… I thought he might have needed something,” he dodges her gaze as he speaks. “Or something,” he adds quietly.

Eliza squeezes his elbow, her smile steadfast. “Come on, we’re gonna have ice cream.” She’s not asking for him to come back, only telling and pulling him with her by the arm.

“Was that Jack?” Peggy brightens when Lafayette returns. She’s pouring Baileys over her bowl of vanilla ice cream. Grins.

“Uh, yeah.”

The despondence in his tone makes her smile fall. She trades a glance with Eliza before turning down into her ice cream and using a spoon to mix it with the Irish Cream. Eliza still has hold of his arm, and walks with him away from the table and into the kitchen.

When he declines dessert, Eliza offers him a smile and a full glass of mulled wine, still warm.

“I’m glad you could make it, you know,” she tells him as she pours her own glass. “It was actually Peggy’s idea to invite you. She said that since John was going home – ” in better judgement, she cuts herself short, interrupts with another smile. “In any case. We’re glad to have you.”

They used to have celebrations similar to these, in the days that they got off school in undergrad around this time. It was mostly food cooked in the common areas of dorms and beer snuck past their RA, but it had been nice. Nice in a different way from sitting at a table with the Schuylers and listening to them and their father include himself and Alex in their little family.

Lafayette’s eyes do narrow – only subtly, and only for a moment, as he tries to reason through Eliza’s sentence cut short. He’s too polite to question her on it, and she knows that. Drinks her wine and encourages him to do the same.

“Thank you,” he decides. “For thinking me.”

 The night goes on, and he manages to leave his lingering thoughts of John and their phone call and the way that emotion had sunk through his voice, manages to stop wishing that Hercules hadn’t gone home, too, and manages to insert himself back into conversation for the rest of the night.

\---

The early autumn air is still mild when John had pulled him out of the house to take a breather.

“That was Frankie. Francis,” he explains. Rolls his eyes. “Jackass. I was just tryin’ to get some weed, and he had to go and – _ugh,_ ” John scoffs. “Thanks,” he says, when his expression fades back into neutral. “For, uh. Stepping in, and whatever.”

Lafayette nods at him. “Of course,” he says, quiet.

John’s been at his side for the rest of the night, wouldn’t let him go find the girl from his economics class again, wouldn’t let him go. He sits with his legs crossed under him and his head leaned onto Lafayette’s arm, keeps his own linked around it and his drink in his other hand.

“Hey, Gil?” he says, eventually. Looks at him with eyes almost half-lidded, his face basked in the light from the street and the house behind them. He says yes? and waits. “I think you’re my best friend,” John tells him.

It isn’t the words themselves, but the way that Laurens says them, that make his heart sing.


	9. December I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end of it all something's got to give, someone's got to give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> a.k.a. the chapter when laf is finally done with john's shit and puts his foot down in probably the most gentle way that someone can possibly do so. 
> 
> (sorta.)

It’s late, grossly late, when Lafayette’s phone buzzes with a number of incoming text messages. All from Peggy. He’s alone, at home, refining his final papers and presentations for the upcoming week of due dates and cumulative exams. John is out, celebrating the end of his term with Peggy and a number of other medical students at the same bar they’d taken him to for his birthday.

 _Come collect Jack_ , the first message reads.

Peggy waited only seconds without response before adding:

_Seriously he’s being a brat_

_Come get him or I’m leaving him here_

He sighs and tells her he’ll be there soon, takes time to put on something more appropriate for the weather before leaving with his keys and phone pocketed.

Winter has finally come, bringing with it the season of icy sidewalks and snowy stairs and bare trees with heavy, leaning branches. He shivers through his walk and it feels longer than it had in October. The bar is warm and loud and crowded. Laf spies some of the med students only by the teal of scrubs under casual jackets and makes his way over.

Peggy, annoyed, catches him by the wrist and points her straw at him. “You take so long,” she snaps. She drops his wrist but pokes his arm hard.

“I walked,” he tells her, unbothered, unfazed.

“Jack’s being a dick. I don’t know what got into him but I don’t like it,” she rolls her eyes and forces her straw through the ice left in her glass.

Lafayette gets halfway into asking what he’s done before Peggy supplies him with her answer.

“He yelled at me. Me! Earlier. After our exams and after all I’ve done for him.” She grumbles obscenities under her breath. “He’s being mean, Laf,” she says with a sigh and a lighter tone. “He likes you. He _listens_ to you. Maybe you can get him outta here before he gets himself into trouble.”

John gets into these moods under stress and while they fit him better than restless hands and chewed nails and bitten lips, they’re worse. He outgrew teenage, hormonal, puberty moodiness only halfway and exists in a careful balance of himself and his temper. Lafayette has, for the most part and until now, managed to say behind the fire of that temper. He’s never been its target, only caught rarely in periphery.

Until now.

“What are you doing here?” his tone takes on what Peggy had described when he follows her direction to John. He sits without empties before him, and glares at his drink instead of at Lafayette.

“Peggy called me.”

“Ugh. Dude, I’m fine.”

“You’re drunk.”

“ _You’re_ drunk,” he counters. Tells Lafayette to _shut the fuck up_ , when he laughs at him.

He’s made the assumption thus far that this mood, whatever it is, is fueled by one-part residual stress and now, one-part alcohol.

Despite his assumption, Lafayette makes the mistake of trying to reason: “It’s closing soon, anyway. Let’s go home.”

“You can go home.” Sharp. John downs his drink, quick, practically chugs it, just to spite him.

In the weeks following John’s weekend home, they’d fallen back into their quiet, strained normalcy. John’s words had held true – his effort to not contact Lafayette lasted through Sunday and until he’d come through their door, shaking dusty snow off of his coat and out of his hair.

“You can go, Gil. Don’t gotta babysit me, or whatever Pegs called you to do,” he continues when his retort goes unanswered. “I’ll walk.”

“Can you walk?”

And, just to spite him, John stands. He sways a little and holds onto the back of his chair as he climbs to stand on the seat. He’s taller than Laf, there, and puts his fists on his hips.

(In the background, the bartender rolls their eyes and decides to pointedly not deal with it. John and the rest of them are regulars here – the bartend recognizes Lafayette from behind, leaves him to try and rein in John by himself.)

Lafayette gives a pained, sidelong glance in Peggy’s direction. She has an expression that’s somewhere between disbelief and laughter, and offers only a shrug and a smile that drips I-told-you-so.

“What the fuck, John. Get down. You’re going to fall,” he still tries to reason. He manages his hands around John’s wrists, around his forearms, in an effort to keep him from falling and to get him down.

His hands are swatted away.

 _“Make me,”_ John says, all petulant and moody and maybe he never entirely grew out of that teenage bitterness.

Maybe it’s because he’s tired, or maybe it’s because of Lafayette’s own levels of stress, but the only response he has to that is to step up to the challenge. He curls one arm securely around both of John’s legs and steps back, lifting him off of the chair while he uses his free hand to push John’s torso over his shoulders.

He shouts in surprise, and while John says, “What the _fuck_ ,” Lafayette swears he can hear Peggy’s loud, full-bodied laughter from across the bar.

Lafayette manages enough calm to say, “We’re leaving,” without annoyance bleeding into his tone.

The silver lining is that Alexander isn’t with him. Had Hamilton been at the bar as well, they would have been halfway into a bar fight and all the way into never being allowed back into their usual bar again. Alexander and John feed off of each other in a way that makes them seem as though they’ve been attached at the hip for their entire lives, and in a way that gets them both into more trouble than they’re worth.

“Gil, what the fuck, put me _down_ ,” John tries to fight him, tries to kick, but can’t get leverage needed for the momentum. He yields to a weak punch against Laf’s back.

He hails a cab and puts John down just long enough to urge him into the backseat.

John considers climbing out the other door, even as the taxi starts to drive.

“What’s your problem?”

“What’s _my_ problem? John, really?”

“Yes, really.”

“God’s sake.”

It doesn’t come without a rolling of his eyes, and Lafayette shakes his head before deciding to pointedly ignore him, turning his gaze out the window instead. The rest of the ride, however short, is time enough for Lafayette’s annoyance to fall to fatigue. John is still wired tight, though the anger that had boiled under his skin has faded to a simmer of faint annoyance. Calmer, he refrains from telling Lafayette to fuck off again when he’s pulled out of the taxi by the arm.

John yanks his arm back.

“You don’t need to walk me,” he says. He stumbles on the step up to their building’s door and grabs onto Lafayette’s arm to steady himself.

“Yeah,” Laf says flatly. “Clearly, you’ve got it handled.”

Begrudgingly, John holds onto his arm up the flights of stairs to their door and it’s not until they’re in the kitchen that he says, “Wait, don’t you have a presentation tomorrow?”

It’s edging past one. Lafayette gives a quiet, tired sigh, and rubs at his eyes with one hand.

“Yeah. Yes, I do.”

“And you gotta deal with my drunk ass,” John says as he sheds his coat and drapes it over the back of their couch.

They finally cleaned up the nest of blankets and put away the remnants of nights spend close and cuddling and all things that Lafayette has been refusing to allow himself to think about. He fell back into the habit of avoiding John as much as John had been avoiding him – they would still study near each other, each focused tightly into their own work, but otherwise they’ve spent more time away than together.

Lafayette still stares at the blinking, digital clock of the stove’s console when John comes up to him. When John starts pulling at the lapels of his coat and struggling with its buttons and its zipper.

“What are you doing?” he asks as John helps it off his shoulders and drops it on the table.

“It’s like, one thirty, or whatever.”

“And?”

“You don’t have time to work, or whatever. Let’s go to bed.”

“No, John – ”

“Please? I miss you.”

“John,” he tries again, weak this time. He’s weak for John, weak for the way he looks up at him and curls his fingers into his shirt and. Lafayette sighs. “Okay,” he says. “Okay,” he lets John pull him by the shirt, then the arm, then the hand.

John needs help getting his shoes off. He lies back on his bed as Lafayette unties his sneakers and tosses them vaguely in the direction of his dresser. The world spins and he tosses one arm over his eyes instead of watching the ceiling and the overhead light sway to each side.

“You’re ridiculous,” Lafayette tells him.

“Mm. You wouldn’t have me anyway else.”

He isn’t wrong.

John sits up only to half-change out of his clothes – he kicks off his jeans in the direction of his shoes and asks Lafayette to bring him a shirt. He gets tangled in his sweater, equal parts ridiculous and drunk, and makes an unhappy noise before saying, equal parts pathetic and drunk, _“Help me.”_

Lafayette says, “Oh, my god,” before he helps John, pushing his arms one by one to buckle and helping him out of the sweater.

Laurens looks at him, eyes half-lidded, the bun holding his hair loosened against the nape of his neck, the drunk flush seeping down from his cheeks to the crest of his chest. “Hi,” he says, putting both hands on Gil’s shoulders. He’s still holding the sweater.

He holds it tighter, like it’s the one thing keeping the seal from breaking. John’s hands twist into his shirt and he drops the sweater. The t-shirt is on the bed, next to John’s leg, and he’d meant to pick it up and help it over his head but now, moving his arms seems like too much a task to handle.

One of John’s hands slides up, rides up his sleeve, stops to curl around the back of his neck.

The seal breaks.

“Hey,” John says. “Hey, come here,” he scoots forward on the bed and presses his knees against the dips of Lafayette’s hips. “Come _here_ ,” he says again, when Lafayette doesn’t move. He hooks his legs around Laf’s thighs, urges him forward. He still has the one hand on the back of his neck and the other slides down his chest, clings around his side, to the fabric of his shirt, and pulls him forward.

He says, “John, John,” in a whisper when his knees press up against John’s mattress. Lafayette’s breath is caught in his throat like this is new instead of familiar, like this is something rather than drunk lust.

He almost tries to change pace. Almost asks what got into him earlier, almost asks what made him go from defiant to pliant, what made his anger fade so fast. But he gets no time, gets no air. He loses his conviction, too, when John pulls him down. When John presses his thumb into the pulse point at the top of his neck, in the hollow of his jaw. When John’s hand slips under his shirt and skates up his side.

Kissing John Laurens is an action with the ease of familiarity. Even as John pulls him down, pulls him on top of him, and he has to find places to put his hands to prop himself up. Lafayette tries to kiss slow, steady, even, but it’s overpowered with drunk fervor. It’s overpowered by John’s legs wrapping fully around him. It’s overpowered with wet, open-mouthed kisses and John’s tongue tracing over his lips and licking inside his mouth, against his teeth.

John’s pushing up his shirt, rolling his hips, making gaspy noises against his mouth.

The twisting feeling in Lafayette’s chest moves south.

It takes a few, frustrating seconds of John scraping his palms up Lafayette’s sides and riding his shirt farther, farther up, until he leans back and pulls it off himself, putting distance between them, even with John’s hands pawing at the hem of his waistband.

He leans back, sitting on his knees and curling his hands into fists around his shirt. As he holds it in both hands, it feels like an echo of the way he’d so tightly held onto John’s sweater, the way he’d gingerly set the shirt down beside John on the bed before helping him out of it. Lafayette looks down at him, and the pause draws forth a sigh.

John is red-faced and his breath is labored and his fingers are curled into Lafayette’s waistband.

“What?” he asks, when the pause turns to hesitance. “Gil, what is it?”

“I – you – John, you’re drunk,” he says, after smoothing the wrinkles out of his shirt and setting it on top of John’s rumbled sweater.

He sits up and only sways a little, only until he moves forward to press his forehead against Lafayette’s chest. His legs are draped over Gil’s thighs and he curls his arms around his middle. Though his expression is calm, his demeanor almost indifferent, his heartbeat betrays him – it thudders quick in his chest, hard and loud enough for John to hear it, feel it, under his skin.

“I want you,” he says into Lafayette’s skin. Kisses his skin gently, feather-light lips. “I always want you,” he urges. Takes his fingertips and his nails down his back. Lafayette’s breath betrays him with a sharp inhale. He feels John’s smile against his skin. “Don’t you want me?” he asks, tipping his head back, chin pressing into Lafayette’s sternum.

“I can’t,” he spits out, no fumbling, no stammers. It’s shock enough for John to lean back, away from him, spreading his weight back onto both hands against the mattress.

“You… can’t?” he repeats.

“I – I don’t _know_ – ” Lafayette exhales roughly and puts his face in his hands.

“If, if you don’t want to,” Laurens starts, already scooting back, already making away from him.

“No, no. No, it’s not that. I. I just. I can’t.”

He pushes a hand through his hair, smoothing it back over the curve of his head, trying hard to find the right words, the words that he wants.

“What do you mean Gil?”

“I don’t think that I can do. this. anymore.” He says, gesturing emptily with his hands. Lafayette can feel his face heat with fluster. “This – this whatever we’re doing. I don’t think I can do it, anymore.”

And John just says _oh_ , in a painful, twisting way. (It feels suddenly like someone’s stuck their hand in his chest, twisted it, pulled, played with his heart in a way that sours the back of his throat. John chokes on his breath and curls an arm around his middle. His expression betrays him and he swallows hard to try and press it down. Despite it, his shoulders lurch forward.)

“I’m – I’m sorry,” Lafayette says as he steps off the bed, back onto both feet. He tells John sorry again. Leaves without his shirt and hides in his room.

He struggles, later, to sleep. He struggles just as hard to wake up. He hopes, after getting dressed and makes across the common area to leave, that John’s night out would give them enough time to cool off from the night’s incident.

John is, however, waiting for him at the table.

“Coffee,” he says it like a peace offering. It’s in a travel mug with a lid, because he knows that Lafayette needs to leave without time to stay and chat through the complexities of their relationship _thing._

“Sorry for, like, jumping you last night. I don’t know what got into me,” he laughs dry. “Like… the whole night, just – sorry, Gil.”

“Yeah,” he says. Despite the distance in his tone, Lafayette takes the offered coffee.

“Are we cool?”

“I don’t think so.”

And John says _oh_ , again, in that same way as before – with a sharpness of emotion and a contorting of his face that he dips his head to hide.

“I have to go,” he says. “My presentation.”

John clears his throat and coughs and manages: “No – no, I got you. Good, uh, good luck.”

“Yeah,” he says, again, before he leaves out their door.

Lafayette takes the time to find his key and locks the door behind him, even though John is home. The time that he takes him allows him the time to catch the start of John’s sentence:

_“Pegs, Peggy, I fucked up – I think I fucked up – ”_

He doesn’t stay to hear the rest. As he descends the narrow flights of stairs he forces it out of his mind. Tries not to imagine the sharpness in Peggy’s tone as she reminds John of how he’d treated her the night before, and how she’d tell him that he _certainly did fuck up, thank you._

Lafayette forces his thoughts to his project, going over a mental outline and – and nothing else, nothing else. Alexander texts him through his commute, all long winded messages about the project and last minute edits that he wanted to run by Lafayette before making provisional plans to finish their revising and studying for the rest of the week. He’s grateful for the distraction, but the presentation falls just short of how he’d wanted it to go.


	10. December II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you need a shoulder to cry on. Sometimes you need two. Sometimes you need three.

The law library, with its endlessly tall, ornate bookshelves lined with volumes upon volumes of theory and encyclopedic reference material, is usually a safe haven. Today, as with any exams week, it’s bustling with students and the air hangs heavy with the smell of disturbed books and stress. Lafayette has been staring at his page for so long, he fears that he’s forgotten how to read – the letters all blend, forming into words but he can find no meaning in them and he presses his thumbs into his temples.

Alexander sits across from him with a mess of papers and stacks of opened books before him. Three paper cups are stacked at the edge of the table by his laptop, rid of their lids and cardboard sleeves. His expression has gone neutral in concentration – blank, save for the knitting of his brows at the bridge of his nose and the slight motion of his lips as he reads along a particularly challenging passage.

He’s so desperate for as much study material and as many minds to bounce ideas off of, that he’d conceded to allowing Aaron to join them for the afternoon. Where Alexander is all tight, taunt energy that frankly only adds to the stress pooling under Lafayette’s skin, Aaron is a calmer force. Aaron is also a fantastic resource – he had dedicated more time to the class that he and Lafayette share, making his notes precise and organized.

Laf thinks it scary, almost, how meticulously Aaron takes notes. He keeps two notebooks per class plus the lecture notes that he keeps saved in documents on his computer. One notebook comes purely from required reading and supplemental material, while the other combines the most important information from that notebook and the lectured material. It’s all neat, highlighted, and outlined in a double hierarchy of complexity and importance to the course.

It's truly a work of genius and Lafayette had almost cried when Aaron allowed him to look over the notes during the creation of his own study guide for their final. Even with it, though, he’s fairly certain that this last exam is going to wreck him.

He’s far too distracted.

John won’t even look at him. When he does manage to catch his eye, John’s eyes glass over with pain and his expression contorts, goes sour and strange and he always darts away. Laurens has taken to hiding in his room unless Lafayette is out (or, well, he assumes as much), and he isn’t entirely sure of when John eats, or showers, or anything.

Their first encounter after – after Lafayette’s rejection and after his refusal to accept John’s apology – was awkward. John’s voice had taken on panic, when Lafayette had come through their door to find him in the kitchen: _“I – I was – ”_ he’d exclaimed, stumbling for words, before skirting around Lafayette and saying, over his shoulder and not without the same waver in his voice, _“I’m – bed, I’m gonna go to bed, it’s – I’m tired,”_ and his door had shut behind him.

And he’d hated it.

Nearly as long as they’ve known each other, he and John have existed in an air of casual awareness about them. All gentle touches and sidelong glances and knowing exactly where the other is, they’re attached in a way that differs from John and Alexanders inseparable friendship. It had only intensified when they’d begun sleeping together – though always infrequent, rarely planned or prompted, but never out of place. He feels, now, out of place in his own home.

And he sighs, heavy, leans forward with his elbows on the table and his hands pressed into his eyes.

His coursework is important, and makes for the top priority of his life, but even with that reminder, Lafayette can’t force himself to think straight.

Thoughts twist – as he reads paragraphs on cases and the fundamentals of an entire section of law, he finds his mind settled on John. On John and his eyes, pretty hazel and bright and shiny with tears. Lafayette is certain, now, that the morning he’d left John sitting at their table with the bitterness of spurning heavy in the air, that the dip of his head had been with intention to hide that welling of emotion.

He stirs out of his thoughts only when the dull, eraser-end of a pencil prods at his arm. Once, twice, three times.

“Yes?” he offers tiredly. Exhausted, he’s exhausted, he can’t sleep.

“You were – ” Aaron starts but looks to Alexander for guidance. _Zoning,_ he offers. “Zoning,” he repeats. “You were zoning.”

“Oh,” Lafayette says and straightens his posture and leans back so his shoulders press against his chair. “Perhaps. I need a break.”

Immediately, Alexander asks, “How long do you think you’d be? We still have – ” he drops his attention to the schedule he’d made for his revision, drawn out on the back of a printed syllabus. “We still have three chapters for von Steuben’s class, and then – ”

“Alexander, I think you should let him take a break, first,” Aaron offers when Lafayette’s tired gaze only goes bewildered. Alexander, who starts to protest, halfway into insisting that they keep on track, quiets only when Lafayette yields quiet agreement with Burr.

“I. I need sleep,” he says, eventually. “Desperately.”

He isn’t Alexander. No one is Alexander, who seems to pull consecutive all-nighters with little strain on his devices. It shows only in a progressing messiness to his handwriting that goes illegible as he nears three days without sleep.

Eliza, bless her, he should ask her to remind Alex to sleep.

“I’ll text you in the morning, Alexander,” he says with finality. Then turns to Aaron, asking preemptively to borrow his notes again tomorrow with the purpose of the final stages of consolidating them into his own. Aaron agrees, of course, and promises to forward him the last section of the digital portion before the night grows too late.

He takes his time in gathering his things, allowing Alexander to keep hold of some of his materials because _we’re studying together tomorrow, anyway, Laf,_ and he bids them both a goodnight before making for the exit. He follows lines of the tall bookshelves, winding around cubbies and tables still occupied with dutifully studying students. The plain paint ends with ornate wallpaper in the reception area of the library, with tall wainscoting that mirrors the wood of the shelving.

Lafayette pauses by the book return to button his coat and secure his bag before taking to the perilous outside. With the setting of the sun, the temperature has gone frigid and – worse, still, it had been warm enough to rain and sleet earlier, and all the residual, standing precipitation has gone to ice with the drop into coldness. He shuffles along the sidewalk carefully to avoid all possibility of a wipe out.

More than once, he’s been careless and eaten shit on the pavement. Ice and cold concrete are unforgiving.

The path he takes is slow going and in nearly the opposite direction of his route home. He’s _tired_ , he can’t face John and those sad eyes. Can’t stomach the tension of their home and another meal eaten alone, either at their table or his desk or in his bed.

He’s going to the only person he thinks to: Hercules.

A train ride, a walk later, he presses incessantly at the bell until the intercom comes to life, buzzing more harshly from the strain of the cold.

_“Jesus fuck, what? Who is it?”_ Annoyance rings in his tone.

Lafayette holds the button to talk to him, “It’s me. Let me in. Please.”

_“Lafayette?”_ the line goes dead without his confirmation and within moments, the door is forcing back into the stairwell, Hercules behind it. “Are you okay?” he asks, immediately. Follows with, “What happened?”

He hesitates. The questions stir to life all the twisting, horrible emotions in his chest and they rise without hindrance, coiling in Lafayette’s throat and making his expression twist and he can feel his own eyes prick with wetness. It’s a reaction he hadn’t expected and he coughs, clears his throat, tries to force the tightness and the pain down as he drops his gaze to his boots.

“I – I just. Can I. Can I come in, first?” he asks with difficulty. Halfway to wrecked. Voice rougher than he’d like. Words more broken than complete.

“Yeah,” Herc goes soft and ushers him through the pass. “Yeah, ‘course, come on.”

You’d swear that Hercules’s apartment is too warm to be heated only by ancient radiators and baseboard heating. He must have managed to fix them, find some balance that made them more functional than what’s found in most other old builds. Or, it could be the space heater he keeps plugged in front of the couch, maintaining a warm, radiating warmth through the enclosed living space.

Hercules continues to guide Lafayette inside as they make through his kitchen, even helping him out of his coat. He pauses only to hang it, and offers hot tea.

“I had the kettle on already,” he says, gesturing to the mug waiting by his stovetop. “I’m making you tea,” he decides for him and within moments, offers him a steaming mug with the teabag still steeping.

Lafayette holds it cupped in both hands, letting the warmth go through his skin and his frozen fingers and leans for the steam to curl around his face.

“What happened?” he’s asked again, softer this time, and as they huddle on the couch by the heater.

“I – I don’t. I think – I just,” he sighs, rough and hard and frustrated as his voice betrays him, going weak and a little high and he sets his mug down to rub his eyes. “Laurens. It’s John, it’s – it’s _us_.”

Hercules only says, “Oh, okay,” trailing his sentence and leaning to try and catch Laf’s gaze. He tries, silent, to urge him into elaborating. When he doesn’t, Hercules offers gentle fodder: “Is everything okay?”

“ _No,_ ” he says miserably. He hides his face in his hands and it all comes out, it all comes out and it isn’t pretty, even muffled by his palms. “Nothing’s okay, it’s not okay. We – we just – we – I. I think I might be – I don’t _know_ – ” and he starts to _cry_ , whining with the attempt to stifle it and he thinks it might be better to just let it happen. He unfolds, there, on the couch, and cries into his hands.

With body-lurching things that border on sobs, Lafayette’s tears spill onto his skin and trickle down his face and through his fingers, he shakes with the effort. Hercules, always gentle, doesn’t shush but soothes, quiet: “It’s okay, it’s okay. Let it out, let it out. You’re okay. Okay, okay,” with a steady arm around him and a strong hand to rub into one of Lafayette’s arms.

In any other circumstance, he’d be embarrassed by the time it takes him to regain some grasp on his composure. He still shudders, each breath hard and shaky against the thick weight of crying on his chest and in his sinuses. Laf rubs both palms against his jeans before wiping the residual tears from his face.

“I ruined everything,” eventually. His voice is weak but saturated with the emotion that’s spilled from his sternum to every part of his chest cavity. It hangs like molasses in his lungs and snares into his heart like thorned wire and he leans back into Hercules, heaving breaths, still unable to completely quell his crying.

“No, you didn’t,” Hercules tells him. “You didn’t. What happened? Tell me. I want to help, tell me.”

Before speaking, he tries for deep, even breaths. No matter the effort, they stutter and catch on the sticky, awful emotion, forcing him to shake on the exhale. Until he gives up, until he decides to sound pathetic.

“I didn’t sleep with John.”

“I can’t – I _can’t_ – be what he wants. We-we want different things, I think. I think we. I think we want different things. Out of. Out of us.”

“But. But at least we, we had _something._ I ruined it! Ruined – we were close. At least. Something, it was something, and now it’s nothing,” Lafayette swears under his breath and cuts himself short as those awful, gaspy sobs threaten to take his voice again and he curls his arms tight around his middle. He curls forward and his shoulders shake. His whole body shakes.

“How long?”

“Uh – um. Years, um, three? Three years.”

“So since – ”

“Yeah.”

“It’s okay, buddy,” Hercules offers, lost of what else to say.

“It’s – It’s not, it’s really not. He’s so _confusing_ , I never know what he wants from me. He says he wants me, always, and then rarely wants me near. He only wants me when he’s drunk, Hercules, only drunk – and I don’t. I don’t want that,” his voice and his breath catch in his throat and he makes an unhappy noise, dropping his head back to lean half on Hercules’s shoulder and half on the cushion of his couch.

“Jack cares about you, man, he – ”

“He’s hurting me.”

And Hercules just says oh, with the realizations of how deep Lafayette’s feelings must run.

Those feelings had been shallow, initially – the impulsive and hedonistic pursuit of sex, good sex, with someone with whom he had a relationship past acquaintanceship, past a one-night stand. With the progression of time, though, they developed further and have cumulated into, into this. It has all come to crying on Hercules and his couch and sniffling pathetically, fists harsh against his eyes and the tear streaks across his cheeks.

“I know, I know,” is all Hercules says to him, working his hands harder into Lafayette’s shoulders and his upper arms and the base of his neck. “Tell me what I can do, Lafayette. Gilbert. I want to help you. Tell me what happened.”

And so he does.

Finally, finally, he divulges everything – not without hiccup, more spells of crying and miserable lamenting about the painful curl of emotion nestled within him. It’s all John, John, John. It’s all the unstable foundations of their intimacy, the way that they are so tied together – wound into knots that form a greater web of pure mess.

Hercules does admit to his inclinations and assumptions about Laurens and Lafayette’s living arrangement; for as much in their own world as they are, it isn’t a world that is invisible to an objective eye. So it seems.

Lafayette sighs haggard. “Does everyone know?” he asks. “Do they? Is it that obvious?”

“No, no. Ham’s dumb to it. I don’t know about the girls,” he shrugs. “Peggy could. She and Jack are close, y’know?”

“I think. I think that she does.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“He told me he didn’t tell her. I think – that he wanted it a secret.”

“Oh?”

“I do not – I don’t know why. He would never speak with me about it, he would always stop me. He’d say to save it for later, but we never talked until.” Lafayette gestures emptily, making reference to the tumultuous night he’d ruined it all.

Hercules’s exhale exudes concern. The twisting of Lafayette’s emotions is palpable in the air; he wears angst like a looming stormcloud overhead and it makes Herc’s heart ache with sympathy. Rather than allow for Lafayette to continue to wallow in misery, he claps him on the shoulder. “You know what you need?”

Careworn, Lafayette’s expression pulls unhappily. “Hercules, no.”

“What? Come on, man, at least let me make my case before you throw me out. You need some good ol’ comfort food.” Hercules stands, finally, and drums his fingers on the sides of his thighs. “Whatcha craving?” he hums as he takes his way across the room and shuffles through the pile of takeout menus he keeps in one of the storage drawers of his console table.

Lafayette only offers a disinterested noise, shrugging his heavy shoulders as he takes to wiping away his fresh tears.

“Alright, I’ll pick,” he concedes. With all other resources depleted, he’s resorting to the age-old: copious amounts of greasy takeout over some dumb, poorly rated comedy flick with the promise of ice cream, later. Maybe, if he still has that half pint in his freezer.

Laf’s only complaint is, “Ice cream? In the winter?” once some time has passed and his emotions have had time to fade more into the background.

To a degree, at the very least. He still pulls the occasional sharp breath, shaky exhale around the twisting that feels as though it’s grown ten times. Ten hundred times. It’s consumed is whole chest, tight around his ribcage and pushing its weight against his stomach and heart and larynx. With the bulk of heavy, consuming crying past him, it’s taken back to its icy, skin-prickling sensation.

Easier.

Hercules and all his warmth presses back against it, numbs the sting of it a bit. The takeout helps, but the movie doesn’t.

“I don’t think I want ice cream,” he says as he makes a precarious stack of takeout containers on the low table in front of Hercules’s couch. “Could I. Can I stay here, tonight? I – I don’t know if I – ”

“Of course you can.”

He smiles a gentle thanks.

“If you want to, you can take my bed. I got some work to do, anyway.”

He forgets, sometimes, that Hercules is still in school. Unlike the others, he’d gone straight into the workforce after undergrad but now takes classes when he can, working towards his MBA. Hercules has a whole plan set out in front of him: he’d gotten his bac degree in design and arts, and plans to jumpstart the baby of a business he has brewing in some online circles. For now, though, it’s an almost tedious job doing designs for a marketing firm and saving his passions for his future and free time.

“I’m sorry to have kept you,” Lafayette says, but before he can continue in that sad tone of his, Herc jabs him with an elbow.

“Nonsense. Shut up, dude. I told you I was here for you. I’m glad you came.”

He thinks, sometimes, that he’s done nothing to deserve a friend as kind as Hercules Mulligan. The thought doesn’t linger when he’s urged off to get some rest, with Hercules’s gaze lingering on his unhidden exhaustion, eyes dulled and lined with purpled circles and the warmth drained right from them, lingering on him all the way on his slow making to Herc’s room.

He has an en suite bathroom and Lafayette takes time to wash his hands and face and splash cool water against his eyes, still irritated from the crying. He avoids his reflection as he dries his hands and face and lies in absolute darkness, face up to the ceiling.

If John is as miserable as he is, Lafayette has no clue; for all he knows, John could be celebrating the end of it all.

\---

He’s not.

“John, baby, you need to calm down.”

It’s four days since _I can’t_ and two nights since Lafayette has last been home. At least once, briefly, he must have stopped in – his laundry gone from the hamper in their bathroom, some of his things gone with it (a book from the table, rubber-band bound index cards, clothes from his closet). John thinks that he might be dying.

“No, John, you can’t – you can’t drink, don’t get drunk. You don’t want to do that. You drink too much; you don’t want to do that.”

It’s Eliza, sweet Eliza, that’s holding his hand and petting his hair and hugging him tight. Peggy wasn’t home and her sister would never dream to close the door on a friend in need. She’s a saint and a thing of magic; John himself can’t understand the words that come out, clustered together and he doesn’t know that he’s really talking so much as expelling every part of his conscious and his conscience.

“Oh, sweetheart, no, no, you won’t lose him. I know, shh, shh.”

He’s irrational. Part of him, a seed of reason buried deep under hysterics and panic and the tenderness of Eliza’s tone, realizes this. It isn’t strong enough, yet, to quell the storm that’s wrecked him so fully.

“John, baby, look at me, please? Gil won’t move away, he won’t. He loves you, John. Yes, he does.”

She has a response to all of his scared babble, it seems, and she wraps her arms tight around him, leaning her chin onto his shoulder as she tells him sweet promises. They’re sprawled uncomfortably on the hardwood floor of the entrance to the townhouse; the front door had barely fallen closed behind John before he’d lost his composure and dissolved into – this.

Eliza, the only one home, had expected one of her sisters at the door and had rushed to him within moments of taking in his stricken expression.

The virtue of this frenzied panic is that the body can only keep it up for so long; eventually, all the energy has to be depleted. Still, it’s probably thirty minutes of Eliza gently rocking him, shushing him, and telling him he’s loved before John has enough handle to think straight.

“There we are, there you are, love,” she murmurs as he takes a deep, ragged breath. It’s the kind of desperate, grasping breath that a drowned man takes and she rubs his back through it as it comes out in a fit of weeping and coughing. “Again, again, you need to breathe, John,” she says.

The first coherent words that he manages are graveled and heartbroken from his hysterics, “Eliza, what did I do?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” she says – because she doesn’t. There’s little context for her to piece together what had caused such a severe reaction. The state that John had dissolved into is one that she’s never seen him fall into. From Laurens, from all her boys, she’s seen tears and anger and great joy, but never that.

“I fucked up, that’s what – I – he’s going to move out, he’s going to move back to France. Eliza, I’m never going to see him again – ”

“No, no, baby. Not this again,” she quickly shushes him.

Peggy Schuyler walks into this, coming through the front door with her signature brightness, a breath away from singing her arrival into the living room – before she all but crumbles. “Oh, god, Jack? What happened?”

She drops to her knees in front of him, puts her hand on the shoulder that Eliza doesn’t already have clasped and touches the wetness on his cheeks.

“Peggy, can you get him some water?” Eliza asks gently. John heaves another dead man’s breath and she hugs him all the tighter. Peggy wipes at his tears and presses a lingering, hard kiss to his forehead before dutifully going to fetch the glass.

“Water will help,” she tells him. “Have you eaten? You should, and then you should sleep, and we’ll put you up in the guest room.”

John is clinging onto Eliza as he drinks the water Peggy brings him greedily. The sisters share a long, sad look before Peggy says that she’ll go set up the guest bed, and hefts her bag up the stairs with her. They share a second, lingering glance when John’s breath stills and he drifts from one emotional extreme to another. From torrential and twisting and loud and unapologetic, he goes numb and keeps his gaze downcast and his words short and almost under his breath.

He refuses food, requesting to sleep instead. Eliza and Peggy fill Angelica in on the situation over their dinner when she asks about the boots at their front door. They leave it vague enough for his privacy.

“It’s Jack,” Peggy says. “Jack’s boots, I mean. He’s. He’s upstairs, sleeping.”

Her voice is dropped low so it won’t carry, so he won’t know that they’re talking about him.

“He is – he needed a place to stay,” Eliza offers.

“I thought that he was living with Gilbert?” Angelica quirks an eyebrow and glances suspiciously between her sisters. “What’s going on.” She allows for a pause, a beat for either of them to answer. “Oh, come on, girls. Let me in.”

Peggy sighs. “It’s a whole thing, Angie, it’s too much. You’ve seen how he gets.”

“It’s not gossip,” Eliza adds.

The younger Schuyler girls offer smiles to her and Angelica frowns, unsatisfied.

“Okay, okay,” she yields, showing both palms as she scoots her chair out. “If he stays more than three days, though, I’m gonna expect an explanation.”

 “Of course, of course,” Peggy agrees readily and with quick nods that make her curls bounce.

The conversation soon smooths over – away from the dramatic boys and into the plans that they’ll make with Eliza and Peggy both off of school for the winter break. The idea of a girls-only New Year’s party comes into topic and Angelica hasn’t missed the opportunity to tease Peggy for her incident with Theodosia – even as ( _especially as_ ) Peggy laments that _you weren’t even at that party, Angie,_ and Eliza’s laughter carries through the house.

John, in the guest room, turns and covers his head with a pillow and wills, wills for sleep. It’s hours before Peggy joins him, climbing into his bed and under the covers and curling her whole body around him in an attempt to force all her love into him.

“I thought that we would be fine,” he tells her, exhausted of all emotion and his voice still wrecked with the effort. “We always were.”

His apartment, Lafayette’s apartment, goes empty for the following days, and into the next week.


	11. December III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John loses the handle on his emotional control. It's a surprise he ever had it to begin with, and Lafayette makes plans to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always i'd like to extend my thanks to everyone who's left comments and kudos <3 it makes my day!
> 
> but - anyway - here is the start of a turning point in the storytelling, where we're starting to focus more on john rather than lafayette. the next chapter, at least, will be focused completely on him!

Within the week, Lafayette’s exams end and he has less and less reason to avoid the apartment. He had continued to stay with Herc, to the degree of them sifting through his storage unit to find and pull out his old inflatable mattress for Laf to sleep on. The extended sleepovers went unquestioned, even as they began to develop a routine around each other.

“You know,” Hercules starts one morning, taking care to wait for attention before continuing. Lafayette looks across to him, expectantly, up from his computer screen. “Y’know, my roommate is moving out in January,” he poses, trailing off for the thought to finish open-ended.

“Hercules, you know I appreciate the offer, but – ”

Both palms go up and Herc immediately, quietly, backtracks. “Just an offer, man. Just an offer. I want you to know your options. _If_ you need them.”

He’s lived in the same apartment nearing on two years, now. When John had expressed interest in taking up his former roommate’s half of the lease, Lafayette had renewed it when he might not have otherwise. In a few months’ time, he will have to face that option again, this time with a more complicated conversation to have with John. It had been over drinks the first time, they’d been sitting casually, listening to Eliza and Alexander fall into their usual, idle conversation that excludes everyone else without intent to harm. John had said, _if you’re still looking for a roommate,_ with ease and gestured to himself, smiling around the lip of his beer bottle before taking his swig.

And so it had been settled. John had bought him another beer as a thanks, and Lafayette had gone home alone.

“Thank you,” he tells Hercules. Lafayette maintains their eye contact, though his fingers still itch at the keys of his laptop. “Really. I appreciate it. You. You’ve been very accommodating to me – ”

“Shut the fuck up, Laf,” is Hercules’ way of dismissing the thanks. They’ve had that part of this conversation so many times, with Lafayette harboring the tiniest bit of guilt for taking up residence on the floor of his living room and having a near constant need to thank him for it.

“Okay,” he says.

“Seriously, you’ve got to let it go. Stop acting like you’re indebted to me for letting you crash here.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”

Hercules also tells him to stop apologizing before asking what he wants for breakfast. With Lafayette’s exams over and his own semester coming to a close, they have a great deal of free time. The winter recess has begun and they each have a few weeks before being thrust back into the grind. Lafayette doesn’t make a decision regarding breakfast so Hercules goes off on his own devices, and they fall into a momentary silence. Things have been quiet, recently. Lafayette hasn’t brought conversation back to John, yet, and Hercules isn’t going to pressure him into doing so.

They’ve been blissfully free of another night full of crying spells.

“What are you even doing, man?” Herc asks as he comes up behind Lafayette to peer over his shoulder.

He has two tabs open in his browser: one is the page he’s been constantly refreshing, awaiting the posting of his final grades, and the other is a series of flights that he’s currently scrolling through, weighing departure times and ticket prices.

Hercules narrows his eyes. “Is that. Are you going somewhere?”

“I’m going home,” Lafayette explains. His voice goes tired. He had only voiced his consideration of returning to France for the winter to Eliza. And she had taken an unspoken swear to secrecy after gauging Lafayette’s reaction to the revelation. “For the winter,” he clarifies. “I think. I think I need to.”

“If this is about – ”

“It isn’t.” Lafayette doesn’t let him finish and the exhaustion in his voice turns to something more sharp, something that makes Hercules shut his mouth and turn back to cooking. “I have been considering it for a while,” he continues with the bitterness lost. “Eventually, I decided that if I kept going back to the thought… I might as well.” He offers a shrug. He stands to fetch his wallet when he finds the flight that stands most in the middle-ground of a reasonable departure time and price.

“When are you leaving?” he’s asked when he comes back.

“Three days,” he answers slowly as he types out his information.

“You’re welcome to stay here ‘til then.”

Lafayette uses Hercules’s printer for his boarding pass and ticket information and offers him cash for groceries – he insists upon it even when Hercules declines, and goes as far as to stuff the money into Herc’s wallet for him and refuse to take it back. The routine that they built around each other continues over the last days before Lafayette is due to depart for France. After they eat breakfast, sitting across from each other at the kitchen table and laughing over stupid things and the rehashing of happier memories, Lafayette does what he’s been dreading.

He returns to his and John’s apartment. Since he began staying with Hercules, he had only returned once or twice to pick up things that he needed, clothes, his personal effects. The apartment is empty when he arrives. Lights off, dishes that had been left to dry still stacked on a kitchen cloth at their counter.

He sighs.

Even without John at home, he feels out of place – he walks slowly and silently, as though he’s trying not to disturb a person that isn’t there. The signs that John had also returned to the apartment don’t go unnoticed. On his way to his room, Lafayette glances into the open door to John’s bedroom.

Despite himself he steps in, he steps into the threshold of the door and stares in. Despite himself, he takes steps farther in, touches the unkempt covers of his bed and draws back sharply, as the body-memory of _I can’t, I can’t,_ flashes suddenly and as it fills his veins with tense heat. His throat tightens around the lump of his swelling heart and Lafayette swears to himself, under his breath, and pushes back the wetness that pricks his eyelashes. He scrubs his eyes with the back of a hand as he leaves John’s room and returns to his own.

The catharsis of pulling out his suitcase and taking the tedious time to gently fold clothes and pack them helps the tide of emotion ebb away. It sinks down, again, finds its resting place neatly in his ribs, where it has lived for months, months, and it stretches its legs out across his sternum. A reminder.

Lafayette is half-packed when John comes home. He doesn’t realize it, first – the sounds of another person are natural, expected, he hasn’t lived alone in years.

It isn’t until John speaks that his whole body stops, ice water in his veins and his heart betraying him as it stirs to painful life.

“Gil? What – are you. Are you packing?”

He sets the shirt that he’s folding on top of the other shirts already in his luggage. Carefully, carefully, he turns to look for John and finds him standing in the doorway, looking tired and scared and one hand drawn up to his chest, fisted around the fabric of his sweatshirt. He still has snow in his hair. He keeps looking between Lafayette and his suitcase and he stumbles over the beginning sounds of words, unable to finish his thought because his voice breaks and the noise jolts through Gil’s chest.

“I am,” he decides, answering John’s initial question. “I’m packing.”

“What the fuck?” he sounds wrecked, the height of his questioning tone going weak and wrecked and for a moment, Lafayette fears that he’s going to start to cry, then and there and in his doorway. “Why? Why are you _packing_?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know how. Instead, he gestures emptily and with both hands, sighing.

John stares him down, unmoving. His lower lip trembles and he bites down, into it until it stills.

He isn’t sure how long the tense silence goes on.

“Are you moving out?” When John manages to speak again, his voice breaks and despite his desperate trying to stifle it, he chokes on a sob and the hand that isn’t pressed against his heart jumps to cover his mouth. To cover any other sad, awful, miserable noises that might come out.

“No, no. No, I’m not,” he assures. Lafayette takes a few steps forward without realizing it, but stops before he fully crosses the room over to John. There is expectation there, that if he draws too close, that John might backpedal away from him, out of the apartment, and while emotion constricts around his lungs to even see him, it is the last thing that Lafayette would want him to do.

He approaches as one would come to a scared animal, with both palms out and careful, slow steps.

“I’m not moving out, John,” he says again, when he is met only with John’s wet, pained gaze. Eyes glossed over, lip regaining its tremble, his hand brought up to wipe at fresh tears that spilled over. Those eyes don’t believe him, and search his face for any sign of lying.

Lafayette is a terrible liar. He puts both hands on John’s arms when he draws close enough and it takes his entire will not to pull him as close as he desires, not to embrace him.

“I’m not moving out.”

“Why are you packing?” he only asks, again. “If – if you _aren’t_ , then. Then.” John takes a heaving breath, one that shakes coming in and out, in an attempt to soothe himself. His voice still wavers when he says, “Gil, I don’t understand what’s going on. Gil, what’s going on, what’s going on – why are you. What _happened_ , what did I do, what – ” panic starts to rise in his voice and both his hands jump to Lafayette’s chest, latching into his shirt to keep him from leaving.

His control is edging out of grasp and John knows that he’s threatening to teeter back into the hysterics that had found him on the floor of the Schuyler’s entranceway. He takes gasping breaths and shudders, his shoulders shaking as his hands tighten into fists.

The tremble in John’s lip spreads to the rest of his jaw and he looks up, up past Lafayette’s gaze, up to the ceiling, as he tries in vain.

“Please,” he manages, resigning himself to the pathetic whine in his voice. “Stop just looking at me, Gil. Please, talk to me, please, please – ”

Lafayette shushes him gently and as he rubs his hands into John’s arms. Despite himself, despite himself, he pulls him closer, pulls John fully against him.

“I’m not moving out,” he says again. “I’m going home, for winter, to see my family,” he explains in a whisper. He fears that if he talks too loudly, his own voice will betray him to the air that he can’t pull into his lungs.

And John asks, “When are you coming home?” against his shoulder. His tears spill onto Lafayette’s shirt, seeping warmth into it and John chokes on another weepy noise, buries it in Lafayette’s skin.

“At the beginning of the term.”

“I don’t want you to leave, when are you leaving, Gil – please. Please, don’t go, don’t – ”

“Tomorrow morning, I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”

This time, John doesn’t stifle the cry that makes its way out. His hands release Lafayette’s shirt to allow his arms to cling around him, wrapped completely around his middle as tight as he can manage. John’s knees are going weak and Lafayette can feel the greater weight that he holds up, he can feel more of John’s tears pooling against his shoulder and he rubs his palm into the space between John’s shoulders. He doesn’t know what to do, he did this, he did all of this.

“I’m sorry,” he tells John. It only makes his body shake. “John, I’m sorry.”

John cries into him and his knees give out fully, all his weight going against Lafayette’s chest until he helps them both over to his bed and sits down. He sits down and tries to help John onto the space next to him, but he refuses to let go and it takes an awkward shuffling of weight and pushing his suitcase nearly off of his mattress to pull John with him. To pull John to settle on his lap and John’s legs wrap around him, his arms shift over Lafayette’s shoulders and he hides his face in the hollow made between the crook of his elbow and the curve of Gil’s neck.

His breaths come out shallow and hot against his skin and it makes him twist in something. In discomfort, maybe, or the chill that runs up his back with every one of John’s exhales. He holds him through the shaking and crying and leans his head forward, resting his chin on John’s shoulder.

Lafayette refrains from telling him _it’s okay, it’s okay_ , he refrains from everything he wants to say. He refrains from it all. As John stills against him, he thinks back on the weeks past, thinks back on the phone call that John had ended in tears, tries to put together the pieces of how they got here.

“I don’t want you to leave,” John tells him, eventually, more composed but steadfast in his refusal to move or look at him.

“I need this.”

“Why! Why do you need to go? Gilbert, please, I don’t understand, I don’t understand you.”

“I need to. I just need to. You have to let me,” he says, words empty of any explanation.

John finally looks at him, desperate, his cheeks flush with the effort of his crying, skin blotchy with red and wet with residual tears. It stabs through his chest all the same, that image of him. That thought that it was his doing in putting John in this state and his own expression twists with pain.

“I’m coming back,” he reminds. “I will always. I need time, John,” his voice drops soft, hoping that the gentle delivery will provide more comfort than heartbreak.

John presses his lips together and starts to finally detach himself from Lafayette. His arms unwind from around his neck and his hands rest on the curve of his upper thighs. John leans back, caught by Lafayette’s arms still around him. Caught by Lafayette’s hands clasped at the small of his back.

“Please try to understand,” he implores as John dips his head. As John dips his head and sniffles and hides his face.

John wipes his face with the palm-sides of his forefingers and sighs out all his anguish before he nods. He nods short and gentle and says _okay_.

“I can’t watch you pack,” he tells Lafayette. “I can’t do that. Can I get my things, first? Please? Don’t make me watch you pack.”

Lafayette accommodates him and holds onto one of John’s hands as he steps back onto both feet, off the bed, out of Laf’s arms. He gives it a gentle squeeze and John looks up, up back to the ceiling, as he breathes hard.

“I’ll be out in a few,” he says, as he hesitates to pull his hand away. “I’m just. I came to get some things. I’m staying with the girls. I need my clothes, and shit,” he rubs his neck with one hand. Gaze downcast. He sniffs again, and shoves his other hand into the pocket of his sweatshirt.

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, John,” he insists. _Please, don’t explain yourself to me_ , he wants to say. Holds his tongue. Coughs on the tightness in his throat and his heart swells and hammers and Lafayette needs nothing more than to reach out for him. To pull him back in and figure this all out, figure it out.

He can’t. Not yet. All his words still anchor themselves to his ribcage, wrapping their thorned arms there, digging deep in his flesh. They won’t come without a struggle and he urges _something_ forward.

“You live here, too,” he continues. “We aren’t. We don’t have. Don’t have to – ” Gil sighs, drops his own gaze. “I don’t want you to avoid me,” he admits, teeth pressing down on the inside of his lip.

“I won’t have to.” There’s meanness there, a harshness that makes Gil flinch. “You’re going home.”

“Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not,” he answers. The acrid air that he’d begun with drops into misery.

John stands there, for a lingering moment, as the air between them evens out and he manages his gaze to soften, lets it do so involuntarily, because he has to. He feels his stomach twist as he watches Gil keep his gaze trained pointedly down.

“I’m not mad,” he repeats. “Promise. I’m not. I’m tired. I’m tired, I need to – I’m going to go get my things. I’ll. I’ll let you get back to it,” he waves a hand in the direction of Gil’s things, his open dresser drawers and his folded clothes and his luggage: the big suitcase and his carry on and he swallows down the panic that rises with his imminent departure.

John gathers his own things, gathers clothes to take back to the Schuyler house and leaves without saying goodbye. Lafayette flinches when the door closes and John takes the stairs down two at a time, nearly stumbles and nearly tumbles down the last flight in his desperation to get out.

He calls a car to take him back to the Schuyler’s and he drops his things in the guest room before he goes to find Peggy or Eliza. Angelica works, works during the day and sometimes stays late. Mostly, it’s the three of them, finding ways to bide their time. Mostly, they melt into the couch and watch movies and catch up on shows they’ve been agreeing to watch for months.

“You’re bringing more things?”

Alex’s voice stops him. John’s making his way out of the guest room, pulling the door closed behind him, when his voice sounds out into the hallway. He’s in Eliza’s doorway, head tilted, eyebrow quirked.

“I needed clothes,” he tries to explain away the _look_ that Alex is giving him.

“Okay. Why?”

“Alexander, please.”

“Laurens, please. Tell me what’s going on. You’ve been here for, like, a week and a half. What’s going on with you and Laf?”

“Nothing!” he shouts. “God, Alex, can’t you just mind your own business? For once, can’t you just stay out of it?”

The shock in Alex’s expression is enough to fizzle John’s anger and he bites back the snap in his tone.

“I’m sorry,” he concedes, draws his temper back like the tide. As it rushes over him, it overcomes him, tumbles him through like rough water. A strong current that draws him out and John has felt like he can’t keep his head above water for weeks, for days, for all the thick water that’s forcing through his nose and his mouth and he chokes on it.

“Alex, I’m sorry,” he says again, as Alexander starts to turn back into Eliza’s room.

“Minding my business, John,” he says lowly.

“Alex, don’t – ”

He stops, halfway back into Eliza’s room, and gives John a glance over his shoulder. “If you don’t want me to know, just tell me that. I’m _worried_ about you. Eliza told me that you came here a wreck, dude.”

“Yeah,” is all John says.

John’s cried a lot, this week. More than he would like to admit to. Mostly, he has tried to hide it – crying in the shower, en suite on the guest room, with the water pouring hot over his shoulders and sobbing into his hands. In his bed, covers drawn up over him, face hidden into his pillow. He hasn’t allowed Eliza to wrap him up again, hasn’t allowed her to see the emotion that forces up like bile, harsh on his throat and leaving his hands shakier than he’d ever like them to be.

He and Alexander share a long gaze that sinks into tension and he swallows hard.

“I’m okay, Alex,” he says, soft, as he breaks his staring to look at his feet.

“Sure,” Alex says.

“I’m gonna go find Pegs,” John tells him before he leaves, taking down the stairs for the living room.

She’s there, sitting on the couch with her feet up, and he spreads out in the space next to her. He puts his face on her lap and tries, hard, not to cry. Miserably, he tells her that Lafayette is going back to France for the winter and she hands him a throw pillow to hug as she pets her hands through his hair.

She tries to tell him that everything is going to be okay, and he doesn’t believe her.


	12. December IV / May 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things only get complicated if you let yourself think too hard. (And, sometimes, thinking too hard is what you do best.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaa this took a very long time but it is the longest chapter so far, i think? in any case, i hope you enjoy and ! i offer my thanks to all those who have left kudos and comments (as always!) because it truly makes my day to know that people are enjoying this <3

It’s early, the first time that Lafayette texts him. It’s short,

_Boarding my flight, see you when I get back?_

And he doesn’t respond because by the time John reads it, it’s already been an hour passed. He sighs, sighs and reads over it. Reads over it an embarrassing amount before he caves and types out his agreement, takes three tries before he just says _yeah, see you,_ because anything more would be too much.

He scrolls through his email. Scrolls through notifications and reads a few, shallow news articles. It’s early and he can’t sleep and he pads out of the guest room, eventually, zippering a hoodie over his bare chest as he makes down the stairs.

It’s the weekend and Angelica is sleeping in, so early bird Eliza is the only one up. She’s drinking tea and tucking her hair behind her ear and smiles when John walks into the kitchen. She likes having him here, he thinks, but Eliza likes having anyone. Mother bird. Eliza brings one leg up, heel on the edge of the chair, and hugs her knee.

“Morning,” she offers. “Coffee?”

Eliza doesn’t drink coffee, but offers it anyway. John says yes and she insists to make it, scooping grounds into the filter and standing back to watch the carafe as it fills.

“Gil went to France,” he tells her. John forces flatness into his voice, swallows down a thickness in his words that he could pass as sleep, but Eliza knows him too well. Eliza, who’s held him and wiped his tears and who spends nearly as much time with him as Alexander, knows him too well.  

“He told me he wanted to,” she murmurs. One of her hands comes out to John’s shoulder and presses gently. “You okay?”

He pauses. A beat. The drum of his heart quickens, going off metronome, and he tightens his jaw. “No,” he decides. “I don’t think that I am.”

She squeezes. “Gil loves you.”

“I wish you’d stop saying that.”

“He does. I don’t know how you can’t see it, baby.”

“That’s not it,” he says. It isn’t it, but he doesn’t know what it is – he thinks about Gil and his whole body stops. He forgets to breathe, sometimes. His head goes light and dizzy and he presses his hands, firm, into his sides. He thinks about Gil and his brain stops. There’s no balance; he dives in headfirst and forgets how to swim, breathes in water and sputters at the surface. Coughs up water and his throat burns with the effort.

He hates it so much, he enveloped himself completely into it. Wrapped himself up in Gil’s sheets and moved into his apartment, slept on his couch for two months to pry himself inside and then clawed at the door once it closed.

Eliza asks him, “Then what is it?” as the coffee maker goes off with the last drops of coffee and he ignores her question to go find a mug.

“Where’s the sugar?” he asks to Eliza’s unwavering stare. She pulls it from the same cabinet she had taken the coffee grounds from and presses the bag into his free hand.

“John,” she says.

“I don’t know if I want him to love me,” he says, stupid.

It doesn’t make sense, and Eliza’s eyes narrow to slits as he tips the bag of sugar and then goes to find the milk. He holds the fridge door open with his hip and she gestures largely with both hands, asks him _what the fuck_ , and the sharpness in her swear almost makes him drop the carton.

“I’ve never, I’ve never been with anyone,” he admits. Voice in his throat, hand shifting uncomfortably around the milk carton and the sourness in Eliza’s expression fades to nothingness. “He’s the first person that I. that I, you know,” he gestures with the mug-hand, nearly sloshes the hot coffee over his fingers.

He can’t tell if the milk carton has already gone sweaty with condensation out of the fridge, or if his palms are going clammy and nervous.

“Wait. The first person that you.” She pauses on the same trail, watching John’s expression for his confirmation. “But, I thought that you,” she says confusedly, her dainty eyebrows turning down in a way that doesn’t quite suit her face and John sighs, hard.

“I never had much chance to date,” he says as he screws the carton’s cap back on with one hand. Takes a long drink, wincing as the coffee goes down and scalds his sleep-rough throat. He returns the milk before pulling his hip out of the fridge and letting the door swing closed. “And then I moved up here, and then.” John gestures again, this time with his freed hand, to let Eliza put the pieces together. “Yeah, so. He doesn’t know.”

“John, you should tell him,” Eliza starts. She stops short when John raises a hand, shakes his head. When his expression twists into something that’s sad and pained and curled in discomfort.

“I don’t think I want him to know. It’s already bad,” he shrugs and smooths his palm over the flyaway hairs that had come out of their tie. “It’ll just make it worse, like I’m telling him it just to get him back. So we can fuck again, or whatever.”

Eliza winces. “I don’t think that he would think that.”

“Maybe,” he hums over the lip of the mug, brings it up to drink again. It’s still too hot to drink and only scalds his throat again. “Or maybe he would,” he clears his throat.

She shakes her head at him as she walks back to the table to pick up her tea.

“Gilbert is a good man, baby,” she tells him.

“I know that he is.”

“Are you afraid of being with him?”

Her question is so sudden that John nearly drops the cup. He coughs on the sharp intake of breath and looks at her, incredulous, “What?” he asks. Sputters. “Eliza, _what_. Why would I be afraid of Gil. He’s. He – no, I’m not afraid of him. Of course I’m not afraid of him, he’s. He’s too gentle, he’s so – ” he cuts himself off early, sieves out the babble into: “No, I’m not afraid of him,” again, this time more surely.

“Are you afraid of being _with_ him?” she repeats. She asks him like she already knows the answer and she watches him, as he struggles to rein his expression back under his control. John can feel her eyes boring into him and he shifts under the gaze, shifts and puts his coffee down, presses all of his weight onto the countertop. He can’t manage an answer and Eliza takes that, commits his hesitation to her memory. “Think about it,” she says. “I’m going upstairs.”

She leaves with the tail of her robe pulling behind her, leaves John with his coffee and his burnt throat standing alone in the kitchen.

He doesn’t, really, have to think too hard about it.

\---

 When he had decided that he was going to, under whatever circumstances, live with Lafayette, they’re rounding out their first year of post-bac and John had invited everyone to make celebration. Spring had begun to emerge into fullness; the dogwood tree outside his window has bloomed with the warmth of the sun, nurtured by the heavy rains of winter’s leaving. His studio isn’t really a studio – it’s an attic loft converted into a unit, tiny kitchenette managed into one corner and open to the rest of the living space.

A family lives downstairs. John spends most of his time here studying, pen pressed between his teeth and coffee constantly on the pot.

Peggy had come home with him, after their last exam, and lies on her stomach on his hiked up sheets and duvet, phone in one hand and hair curled into the fingers of her other.

“I can feel your nerves from here,” she tells him abruptly. He’s on the couch, knees drawn up, skipping through music until he lands on something he feels like listening to. “You can’t be worried about that exam. We studied all week for it and you knew that shit like the back of your hand.”

“It’s not that,” he sighs.

Peggy looks at him expectantly, through the wisps of hair that come across her forehead. “’Kay? You gonna tell me what’s bothering you?” serious as she’ll get, she puts her phone down on the bed to give him her full attention. Even as he takes to fiddling with the music’s volume to find that happy medium of loud enough to hear but quiet enough to not bother his landlords.

“Jack,” she insists.

“ _John,_ ” she tries again, when he keeps still in his silence, and lobs one of his pillows at him.

She doesn’t miss.

John shouts in surprise, gives her an incredulous look before picking the pillow off of the ground and keeping it next to him, saying, “The fuck was that for?” as he eyes the remaining pillow on his bed, certain that she’d throw that one, too.

“It’s rude to ignore a lady. Why are you sad.” Peggy pushes herself up off her elbows to sit upright, cross-legged on the pile of blankets.

“It’s stupid,” he says.

John shifts, uncomfortable under her doubtful gaze, and twists his fingers around the thumb of his opposite hand. His nail digs into his exposed cuticle and he rakes it over the bit of hangnail growing there. Nervous habit, he pulls at it and draws a pinprick of blood and applies pressure with the pad of his forefinger, keeping his gaze markedly downcast. He can still feel her eyes and he groans, leans back into the couch’s arm.

“Let it go, please,” he requests. Casts her a pleading look and she shakes her head at him as the music rises to fill the silence, all whiny voices and plucked guitar and gentle percussion. John listens to easy music. Most of it sad only if you pay attention enough to hear it.

John gets like that too. At times unsure when he enters a room, goes all tense shoulders and worried lips and nails digging into skin. He mingles and charms and smiles bright enough for it to be masked over easy, when eyes are on him. Too much effort when eyes aren’t lingering. Peggy narrows her eyes at him and he presses his palms against his eyes. Hides from her the only way he can.

“If you really don’t wanna tell me,” she trails off, giving him an out, but lays it on thick. Lays her tone so he knows that she wants him to tell her. It’s meant in good nature – John knows she only wants to help, but talking about things only seems to make them too real for his liking.

Like once you say something aloud, you can never take it back. Like once you let something take tangible shape, form into words and sentences uttered into the air, it gives that something a kind of realness that he isn’t sure he’s ready for.

“I invited Gil,” he says, instead.

“Okay? You invited everyone. Even Eliza.” Peggy doesn’t follow. To her credit, there isn’t much to and John’s lips twist with equal parts uncertain and unhappy and he turns on his side, away from her questioning gaze. “Is this about what I think it’s about.”

She knows. He remembers, though he’d rather not. One night, warm and stupid with whiskey, tired and resigned to not being able to handle more studying, he’d spilled his guts to her. John has harbored hope that she had forgotten on the arm that she hadn’t brought it up since.

“What do you think it’s about?” he asks instead, in effort to give her the lead.

“You’re ridiculous,” she tells him. “You know that?” her tone holds no malice, and she gets up to come over to him. Peggy climbs over him, pushes at his side with one hand and makes him move over so she can nestle her body between his and the couch’s back cushions. “You told me about you and Gil. That what this is about?” she waits until they’ve settled to start up conversation again, and frowns when John’s breath comes out in a heavy sigh.

“Yeah,” he tells her. “It is.”

His voice has gone heartsick, pulled tight with something that isn’t quite sad but is far from happy. His heart beats hard in his chest, stirring uncomfortably with the thought of Gil, of the years behind them, of Peggy knowing. John covers his eyes with one palm, again, and Peggy lifts a hand to pet his cheek.

“You could just tell him, y’know,” she reminds him. Peggy had said it the warmed, whiskey-drunk night, and isn’t afraid of telling John that he should cross the bridge and finish it, already. Even the thought of starting that conversation, let alone having it to completion, makes his stomach turn with malaise and knots.

His response then had been a mixture of _yeah, I know,_  but _no, I can’t,_ and they both hold the same air of truth, the same weight in his palm.

John doesn’t answer this time, cut off by his ringtone interrupting the music, phone screen coming to life with Alex’s name and a less-than-flattering picture of him. John puts him on speaker.

 _“Yo, let us in,”_ his voice is a little tinny through the speaker and they can hear Eliza’s laugh in the background.

“You coulda texted me, Ham,” he says as he sits up, pulling his arm from Peggy’s grasp as he stands.

Alexander snorts. _“You never respond to texts. Come let us in! It’s about to rain.”_

John takes his sweet time in coming down, down the creaky spiral of stairs from the attic studio, then on tiptoes down the main stairwell to come to the front door. The loud, exaggerated sounds of a children’s television program buzz from down the hall, mixed with a chorus of high, tiny laughter.

It’s enough to help warm him into a smile as he pushes the front door, swelled with the new spring heat and the foreboding humidity, sign of rain, out to let everyone in. Alex tugs Eliza by the hand in an effort to skirt past John, but she’s too polite for him, and greets John with a smile and a gentle squeeze around his shoulder before her words fall to laughter and Alexander’s urgency to get inside.

Herc smiles big, bright, at him, and holds up a paper bag by its handles. “We brought wine,” he says.

“Cool,” John thanks him as he pushes the door farther to let them by, opens his arms to take the offered bag. He has to shove the door back into its jamb before he can lock it and take up the stairs after them.

“You think you’re gonna miss this place?” Hercules asks him as they come up the cramped well to the attic.

John shrugs and makes a noncommittal noise. It’s a nice place – vaulted ceilings, air conditioning, amenities and utilities paid by his monthly rent, but. “I mean, maybe,” he winds up saying, as Hercules casts his gaze back. “It’s quiet and all. I don’t think I like living alone,” he explains, rounding the curve of the railing post to unpack the bag on his table.

“Lafayette might be looking for a new roommate,” he’s told.

John nods. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I need to talk to him about it,” he inspects the label of one of the bottles, an attempt to ignore the nerves that manifest in clammy palms and twitchy fingers. “Where is he, anyway? I thought he was coming with you and Ham.”

“On his way. He said something about dropping by his place to get something, told us to go ahead. We had to get Eliza, anyway.”

John glances across the room, watches as Eliza and Peggy take into animated conversation – their smiles matching in their curve and brightness and Alexander next to them looking one part enamored, one part dejected as he, for once, has little to bring to the conversation. His smile goes warm, and he looks back to Hercules.

“He’s never on time to parties, anyway,” he says, voice going a little offhand, a little distant, as he rummages through a drawer to find a corkscrew. He hands it off to Hercules when he finds it – because no matter how he struggles, John can never seem to manage to pull a cork out without utterly mangling it. Herc does so with no problems, uttering a sharp noise with the effort when the cork pulls with a resounding pop.

“We’re starting without Gil?” Eliza’s voice rings from across the way, her attention drawn with the sound of the wine opening and Hercules offers only a shrug.

“His loss,” Herc says. “He’ll be here eventually.”

There’s little need for convincing. They congregate in the kitchenette rather than cramped together on the futon, collecting around John’s kitchen table. Except Peggy, who takes to clambering up onto his counter and swinging her legs and twisting to pass cups and mugs from one of the cabinets to waiting hands.

Alex passes on wine, taking to poke through John’s fridge for beer, instead, and uses the hem of his shirt to twist off the cap. John leans on the counter next to Peggy as the carbonation hisses with release and as she leans her arm on his shoulder, rests their temples together. He prickles with the tiniest bit of tension and resentment as he watches Alex go over to Eliza and hold her by the shoulder, draping his arm over her, effortlessly folding back into their closeness. Covers it with a laugh as Peggy makes teasing, fawning noises at them when Alex drops a kiss to her temple.

Alex and Eliza have been lovebirds essentially since they met – since New Year’s, and John only knows because he and Gil had heard them sneaking away to Alex’s room, because he and Gil had snuck away to the hall bath: secluded, away from the common area of Alex’s duplex. The cramped bathroom hadn’t allowed much room to move, and his hips had been pressed uncomfortably against the porcelain lip of the pedestal sink, one foot against the side of the tub because Gil kept closer, standing between his legs, like he was trying to get him horizontal against the sink’s basin. He could almost feel the faucet pressing into his spine when Gil’s kisses had trailed down his neck, leaving the sweet taste of champagne lingering in John’s mouth.

He’d been halfway off the ground, strained on the ball of the foot he had left to stand on with his nails bit into Gil’s skin under his shirt. Halfway into pushing that shirt off completely when Alex’s voice – low, not loud enough to distinguish words but enough to distinguish it as his – interrupted. Followed by Eliza’s pretty laugh and the open-close of the door.

 _“Maybe we should – should get back,”_ he’d managed, breathless, as the ache of being pressed against the sink began to spread into his pelvis and lumbar. Gil had left first, leaving with a lingering kiss as John smoothed his shirt out. Gil had left a few, faint marks down the tendon of his neck and John had to retie his hair and pull curls back into place, shift his clothes back straight. He’d tried to wipe the red and swollen just-kissed look about his mouth before taking back to the party.

He’s broken from his trance, back to reality, with Peggy’s elbow nudging into his side.

“Jack. Jack, come back,” she says into his ear, nudging her elbow harder against his ribs and pushing his wine mug up to his mouth. No one else seems to have noticed that he had checked out and Peggy gives him a gentle smile before she takes the mug to steal his wine.

“You have your own,” he protests, trying to get it back, trying not to spill it as he pulls it from her. He frowns, frowns at her, and she grins shit-eating.

“It’s better if you steal,” she only says before dropping off the counter to rummage through the cabinet behind her head. She almost hits him with the door. “Do you have any food?” Peggy asks as she casts her glance towards him, and her whole face falls when he shakes his head no. “You – You invited us all here,” she gestures wide with one arm, “and you didn’t even have snacks?”

John shrugs, lets his voice go solemn with feigned apology, “Never said I was a good host, only that I was one.”

She narrows her eyes. “I hate you.”

It brings only laughter and an even less convincing apology, one that only stifles John’s grin until Peggy musters up every bad bone in her body to stick her tongue out at him and blow a raspberry. He laughs even louder, then joined by the others.

“Text Gil, tell him to bring something.”

“Yeah, go text Gil, Jack,” Peggy pushes his arm and gestures towards the futon, where his phone is still plugged into his speakers and playing his gentle music.

He goes, dutifully, but first scrolls through his unread notifications. The only thing of importance is a picture from his sister, their dogs curled at her feet, a message telling him that she can’t wait to see him in a few days’ time. He responds to that before pulling up the thread he has with Gil, a mix of frequent, casual talking and infrequent, barely-masked booty calls.

Infrequent only because their free time is spent in the general vicinity of each other, leaving little need.

He types out _bring snacks xoxo_ , adds a kissy emoji for effect and isn't sure if he's serious or not. John doesn’t allow himself to linger on the blinking cursor of Lafayette’s typing because he knows that he’ll only get caught up in their back and forth. He struggles to come back into the conversation, having missed the spark that had brought the conversation back to life. Hercules is talking about something, urged into storytelling, probably, and Alexander is nearly howling with laughter when he walks into the circle they’ve formed around the tiny breakfast table.

John passes his gaze between the lot of them, trying to catch the topic but he doesn’t manage to fold completely into the conversation before his phone comes to life with his ringtone again, abruptly cutting through the music and causing the conversation to hiccup. It’s Gil, his name and picture lighting up the screen and John declines the call before taking down the stairs.

The door takes a deal of effort to get open, again, and his smile comes breathless. “Hi,” he says, leans his weight back on the door, pressure on the handle.

“Hey,” Gil mimes, echoes with his own smile, and the bag he has twisted around his wrist wrinkles with the gentle evening breeze.

“We started without you,” he says, air of apology in his tone and a slight sadness turning into his smile.

Lafayette shrugs and assures that it’s okay, and they stand there for a moment. John in arch of the doorway, Gil standing on the doormat, the air still pulling at the bag and the loose sides of his shirt. He laughs a little, polite, smile downcast and faded before he turns his eyes back up to John:

“So. Are you going to let me in?” he asks.

The buzz of the television in the background has faded from the boisterous, colorful cartoon into something that sounds more like the news, droning. A weather report, maybe. Local summarization. The question startles John out of his lull and he flusters, stumbling over _yeah, of course,_ before he finally moves to let him in. His heart twists and hammers in his chest, cozy with his ribs and spreading a nervous kind of warmth that marries well with his anxious hands, twitchy fingers.

He uses his hip to urge the door closed and strides forward, grabs Lafayette by the wrist and the bag crinkles loudly as he spits, “Hey, wait,” and pulls.

Laf comes back down off the first step, just inches from John as he scans his expression, the light of expectation in his eyes, the warmth behind them and that smile curling at his lips again.

His free hand comes up of its own accord to trace the curve of his neck and find the space where his jaw meets it, and John whispers _come here,_ before pressing up on his toes to kiss him.

\---

Peggy wakes up as the morning creeps into its fullness, the sun shining through the back windows and glittering across the snow that has piled into drifts in the backyard. There’s not enough, yet, to cover the entire grass – but it’s fallen into bunches around the roots of trees and atop the picnic table that they have set up out back.

John’s at the table and his coffee’s cold. He doesn’t seem to notice – it has gone nearly untouched since Eliza had left him with the heaviness of perturbation pulling his throat taunt and dragging his heart down, down, down his stomach. She held no rancor, meant nothing more than her gentle urging for their reconciliation, but. But he’s left with it, left with emptiness in his palms and a swirling in his head that makes his chest feel carved empty.

John puts his head in his hands, still even when Peggy touches his shoulder.

“Hey,” she says, her voice gone soft and tender and edging sweet with concern. “You okay?”

He makes a noise that lands somewhere between a grunt and a _no_ , and she squeezes his shoulder before taking up residence at one of the empty seats. She drinks from his coffee and coughs on it, bitter.

“Your coffee’s stale,” she tells him, expression contorted with sourness. “Gross. You want me to make some more?” Peggy tips her head forward, trying to find his eyes between the pads of his fingers but comes up fruitless and she frowns with her chin on the table. “Please don’t cry again,” she murmurs like she knows that he’s been crying all week.

When he offers no repose, she breathes heavy and presses her palm against his shoulder. Offering comfort in the only way that she knows how, with gentle prodding and weak attempts at joking gone failed. It takes John a long while, but he eventually drops his hands.

“I have to go back,” he tells her. “I – I’m going home, for Christmas, and. I have to go back.”

“To the apartment?” she clarifies, careful. He nods and she frowns and squeezes his arm. “I’ll go with you, if you want. We’re going upstate in a few days’ time,” she trails off, watching the way that he tries to stifle the flinch that his features take on. “Alex is coming with us. Dad liked him so much that he invited him home for the holidays. Isn’t that something?” she offers a smile, tries to worm one out of him with the voicing of her doubts that her father would have taken to Alexander, but warmth with the fact that he did.

John doesn’t laugh.

And Peggy sighs. “What do you need from me, huh? I want to help, but I don’t know what to do, here. Jack, you know I’m here for you, right? I’ve been here since – well, not the start. But long enough, I’d say.”

“I know, I know,” he drops his gaze again as his lips curl down and his eyes glass over with the awful pressure on his chest and in his heart and his breath goes shaky as he curls an arm over his stomach. “I don’t know what I need, either,” he admits wearily. “Maybe going home will be good for me.”

He tries to let the wave of homesickness overcome his heart’s heaviness; the image of endless ocean, dark and murky with winter’s overcast, replaces the image of Gil’s half-packed suitcase for a moment. The dunes, whipped by the brace of cold wind and littered with dormant beach weeds, line that water and he swears he can see the curve of the earth past the white-capped waves.

Home, he decides, is probably what he needs.

“I think. I’ll leave earlier.”

“Okay,” Peggy nods. “You can – I mean, I’m sure you can stay here as long as you need. I’ll still go back to your place with you, if you wanna.”

“Yeah,” he quiets, palming the cold mug. “I don’t think I want to. be there alone.”

He and Peggy make plans to return to his and Gil’s apartment in the coming days, and he makes a call to his father to reschedule his flight for a few days earlier than they had originally planned. John thinks, for a moment, that maybe his father can hear the weight of wear on his voice because he asks how he’s been, but won’t linger on it. They chat idly, while Peggy puts on a fresh pot and he watches as the new falling snow curls in the wind.

For the first time in a long time, he packs his things without Gil over his shoulder. Leaves for the airport without saying goodbye to him, or making provision to be met there upon his return. He leaves two days before the Schuylers and Alexander are due upstate, and Peggy hugs him hard in the kitchen. Presses all her love in between two arms and she kisses his cheek before reminding him: “I’m just a call away. Just a call. Call me, Jack.”


	13. December V / January I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Progress? Progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my apologies for the delay! - i was quite sick for about two weeks and was traveling this week and haven't had much of an opportunity to write or edit. hopefully, the next chapter will be out more quickly!
> 
> <3

He’d spent his first day back in Charleston shopping with his sister for presents, and spent the next day wrapping and the rest of the week has been a blur, a rotating door of extended family and festive paper torn and crumpled and thrown away. John has been keeping himself toeing the line between the melancholy that pulls down in chest and the warmth of a steady, safe amount of red wine. Just enough to take the edge off – he’s not yet bold enough to tip into drunkenness in front of his family. Just enough to dull the line and urge him into a state of neutral emotion and away from the weepy weariness that he’d left New York in.

Home, it seems, hasn’t done much for his disposition. His chest still aches, heart pounding into fatigue with the weight on his chest. That ache, still prevalent over weeks, has now twined itself into his daily routine: slowing it, pushing him towards exhaustion, and spending all the time he can in bed.

He was meant to be the one of his siblings that went along on this stuffy, extravagant gala that a business associate of his father’s was putting on. But, heartsick and unwilling and unable to even consider trading another night in for one of stiff formalities, he’d passed the responsibility on to his sister on the condition that he’d help her get ready.

So, he’s trying.

As much as he can manage involves idle, distracted conversation that he only half-listens to as he lays on his sister’s bed, stuck to his phone, typing out a steady stream of messages Peggy’s way. Rather than answer him, she only offers her own lamenting as she nears her fourth hour of being carbound with her sisters and Alexander, making careful way back to their childhood home from taking an extended weekend even farther upstate. She’d sent him pictures.

The lakes of New York have nothing on the endless, churning ocean – but blanketed in snow and donned with ice thick enough to skate on, he can see the appeal. The highlight, though, was a video that had started with the landscape, snowcapped trees that passed over to Alexander and Eliza, bundled and cuddled together, tied up like lovebirds as Eliza wound her scarf around his neck. Their bubble is shattered, however, with the uncontained noise of Angelica’s laughter as a snowball came into frame, hitting Alex in the face with a sharp, wet sound.  

Alex is, apparently, still complaining about the bud of a bruise that the ice had left on his cheek.

Sisters, and their antics, make him glad that it rarely snows south of Virginia.

His own sister, however, is halfway into giving him a piece of her mind when she realizes that he isn’t listening, and she stoops to snatch his phone out of his hand.

“Hey – give it – ” John props himself up on one elbow as he makes a reach for the phone, pausing with his hand still in the air as Martha makes stern, maintained eye contact and holds his phone against her chest. “Hatty,” he says.

“Don’t give me that. You’ve been – ” she gestures with the phone, still in hand, “ – glued to this the entire time you’ve been here. I’m doing you a favor taking up this event with Papa, and you won’t even talk to me.” She frowns at him, if only for effect, but drops his phone next to him. “You promised you’d help me.”

“I am,” he insists as he pushes himself to sit upright. He looks at the dresses that she’s pulled out of her closet, examining them each with the pass of his glance before bringing it back to her. “I think the middle one,” he says.

Martha rolls her eyes. “It only took me asking you four _times,_ ” she says, all the patience on earth. Her annoyance manifests differently than John’s; Martha is able to gloss it over with a sweetness in her tone, pass over it with sprinklings of syrupy smiles and dainty gestures with small hands.

She gives none of that to her brother, choosing instead to let her irritation be known. Even narrowing her eyes at him as she lifts the dress from where she’d draped it over her desk chair. “Really? This one?” she asks, holding it against her.

“Yeah,” he shrugs.

“It looks like what I wore to prom,” she muses as she traces the curls of embroidery that go up the bodice. Silver stitched into blue. Hatty stands in front of the mirrored door of her closet and pulls the skirt, holding it by the end as she turns back to John. Her frown returns as he’s only gone back to his phone, turning onto his stomach and types away.

“Honestly?” she asks, exasperated. The tiniest bit of hurt turns in her voice and she drops the dress onto the bed without ceremony. Her hands take up place on her hips and she waits, waits for his attention.

“What?”

“What’s going on?” she sits on the edge of her bed, presses one of her hands against his arm. “You’ve been acting. strange.” Hatty takes some care in her word choice, hoping that her pressing will open him up rather than close him. John’s temperamental, and she is all too familiar with his tendency to shut up as soon as someone begins to try with him.

“It’s nothing,” he says. Insists. Acts like she’s already been asking.

“Is it?”

He sighs.

“I just want to know what’s upsetting you,” she says, and lies back with her head resting on the skirt of her dress and her hair splaying across it. Hatty turns her head to look at him.

His phone buzzes with a new notification, and he uses it as an excuse to continue keeping his attention pointedly away from her, and the conversation she is urging him towards – despite the gentle care she takes in doing so. It’s a video message from Lafayette, sent en masse to a new group chat. Before John has a chance to play the video, he receives the number of responses from the rest of their friends wishing a happy new year. In the video still, he’s smiling wide and grouped with unfamiliar faces. John deduces that they must be his French friends, whose faces are unknown to him but he might be able to recognize a name or two.

He plays the video as his sister continues to prod him with questions.

It’s hard to tell where exactly Gil is – there’s music in the background, not loud enough for a bar or club, but colored lights flash against the sheen on his skin and the lenses of his glasses. He wears them rarely. John wishes he would more often.

As Hatty asks him, “Are you _serious_ ,” Lafayette says something John doesn’t understand – his friends chatter over one another, and he might catch _salut!_ or some other form of greeting – before Lafayette leads them in a chorus of _bonne année!_

Lafayette laughs in the video – he’s smiling his real, wide smile that John hasn’t seen in what feels like years. The sentiment presses into a deeper vein: first part worry that Lafayette is, truly, happier without him, second part paranoid that he is the cause of Laf’s recent, despondent behavior. John’s stomach turns and his heart lurches as Lafayette holds his phone closer to his face and moves away from the clustered people. His eyes trace the curl of Gil’s mouth, watch the way his eyes are lit up and warm, even behind the glare on his glasses.

 _“Happy New Year,”_ he says, gesturing with a thin glass of champagne. The video ends there, frame frozen on Lafayette’s smile with the glass brought midway to it.

“Who was that?” Hatty has sat up, and leans forward to peer at John’s messages over the edge of his phone. He tries to wave her away and she rolls her eyes, all the patience on earth, and watches him open his thread of messages with Gil. She watches him type out _I miss you_ , and he watches recognition dawn. “You’re having boy problems, aren’t you. Is that why you aren’t going tonight?”

“Please don’t tell,” John pleads with her – already asking for the world, too many favors he still owes.

“Sworn to secrecy,” she promises, pats the back of his hand as if to seal it. “Looks like your boyfriend’s calling you,” her expression falls to a smile as his phone screen flashes with the incoming call.

“I – I should take this,” he says, fails to correct her. John sits up as he accepts the call, greeted with the muffled pulse of music and Lafayette’s gentle greeting. “I miss you,” he only repeats, leaving his sister alone to her fashion choices and her room. Hatty’s door squeaks as she presses against it to eavesdrop and he takes farther down the hall, trails across the carpet in the direction of his own room. “I miss you so much,” he says, again, voice dropping almost to a whisper.

_“John – ”_

He only gets that far, shortly interrupted by John’s asking, “Do you miss me?”

And all he can say is, _“Yes,”_ with breath hitched and heart in his throat.

John sighs, exhales hard, and presses his back against his bedroom door as he closes it. His room is almost a time capsule – trapped in the last days of the summer before his leaving for New York, his desk is still littered with his graduation pamphlet and cap and his gown is strewn over his chair. He touches it idly and listens to his breath even and tries to discern what song is playing in the background.

Their silence isn’t tense but isn’t comfortable.

Gil fills it, asking, _“How is home?”_

“You look happy,” John answers. His voice is mixed with elation and pity for himself – his heart lurches forward as it twists.

 _“I do?”_ Gil’s tone goes incredulous, almost, maybe just caught off guard.

“Yeah,” he says, sadder this time. John crosses his room and stands in the light basking through his window. Charleston rarely gets cold enough for snow, cold enough to just barely nip at exposed skin. Towards the horizon, he watches dune grass gone dormant and dry pull in the wind. The dunes are too tall for the ocean to be visible past a sliver, just enough to catch sight of the churning water and the whitecaps of the tallest waves.

His breath, once even, now shakes and he digs one nail into the bed of his thumb, reopening a nearly-healed wound. Blood pricks and he smears it away from the nail with the pad of the same finger, rubbing against the wound until the blood stops.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t – I should have – I just – I’m sorry, Gil.”

There’s a longer silence, this one tense, and he hears Lafayette’s movement in a static noise and the music growing quieter until it’s cut off entirely with a sound of finality. A door closing, maybe.

“Gil, please,” he starts to ask that Lafayette just talk to him, when he gets his response.

_“I don’t understand your apologies.”_

“I’m – I’m bad at this,” John gestures with his free hand in an attempt to supplement his own thoughts and urge them forward, urge them into taking their shape as words and coherent sentences and anything more than another apology. “This, this,” he sighs a frustrated noise before, voice breaking, “ _us_. I’m bad at _us_.”

_“There’s an us?”_

“Do you think there’s not?” His heart drops out of his throat so suddenly that John fears it has disappeared altogether, that it’s vanished with the prospect of his blowing this all so incredibly out of proportion. He feels small, smaller than standing in front of Gil’s looming, closed door. Small enough that he swears his phone swells in his hand and very slowly, he moves to sit on his bed.

 _“I don’t know,”_ Lafayette tells him. Gentle as ever. He speaks softly, and in his pause John imagines him swallowing down the remainder of his champagne.

“Do you want there to be?” John asks him in his silence. Eliza and her words flutter in the back of his head, asking if he is afraid and John decides that, maybe, he is. Maybe, he is, because the seconds that it takes for Gil to respond feel like the longest of his life.

_“I think. that this is a conversation we should have in person.”_

The response softens the bubbling of anticipation but crushes all else.

“Is that just a nice way of saying no?”

Even as he tries to reel himself in, pull in to let himself think, John spits out his first thought and bites hard on his tongue. Tears swell against his eyelashes and threaten to spill over.

 _“No, no. No, that’s not what I’m saying, John._ Please. _”_ There’s a genuine pleading there, in his tone, sharp and edging on anguish, and it makes John’s face pull unhappily. _“It just – it feels. impersonal. over the phone.”_

The tears force their way out, even as John scrubs at his face with his shirt sleeve and he isn’t sure if they’ve come from a moment of overwhelming sadness or relief. “Yeah,” he agrees, breathless, because he feels like he has to. “I guess that it is.” He sniffs, supporting evidence to the emotion that draws out in his tone, and sighs. Breath even. Abruptly: “Where are you?” before Gil can ask him any questions.

 _“Paris,”_ he’s supplied, humored with languid conversing that will give him time to weigh and disperse the weight holding down his chest.

John puts him on speaker, and stretches to push his window open. The smell of sea salt floods the room, air just cold enough to let goosebumps prickle up his arms but not quite urging him into a shiver. He comes back to the phone, cradling it next to him as he curls onto one side and hugs his pillow.

 _“I’m at a friend’s apartment,”_ Gil continues into the silence. _“There’s a party going on, but I – it isn’t a big deal.”_

“I’m always dragging you away from these things, aren’t I.”

 _“It isn’t unwelcome.”_ He listens to Gil’s breath over the phone and tries to imagine the weather. Imagines him standing on a terraced balcony with frost-heavy, winter ivy crawling through the trestle and collected snow blanketing the exposed stone. Imagines the rounded tip of Gil’s nose going pink with the cold and his breath pooling in a cloud around him, his breath fogging the lenses of his glasses. _“It never has been unwelcome,”_ he assures, maybe unsettled by John’s quiet. _“I always want you.”_

“I always want you,” John repeats it in a whisper.

_“Did you say something?”_

“No, no, sorry. Sorry. You’re on speaker. Hold on.” The phone gets shifted back to his ear, Gil off speaker, and John tries not to worry that his sister is sitting at his door, listening to it all. “Hi,” he says.

 _“Hi.”_ A moment passes, both their breaths held in it, exhaling at the same time. Without John filling the silence or offering conversation, he continues: _“What did you mean when you said I look happy?”_

“The video. Your smile. You looked so happy,” the explanation doesn’t offer much clarity, evident by Gil only making a sort of listening noise. “You haven’t smiled like that in so long, baby,” his voice drops like it’s a secret. “I worry about you, sometimes,” he says and keeps that softness.

_“I know. I know, you told me before.”_

“I want you to be happy.”

_“I know.”_

“Are you?”

“Gil?”

_“John – ”_

“It’s me, isn’t it?” he asks what he’s been gnawing on. Sinks his teeth into his lip as his chest swells with the burn of regret, even saying it. “I should go – I should let you go,” he starts, halfway to hanging up.

 _“No, no. No, it isn’t you,”_ the assurance does little but give reason for John to pause, to yield, to not hang up on him. _“I promise, it isn’t,”_ his voice has dropped to a whisper but John manages to catch it as he slowly lifts the receiver back to his ear.

“What are you unhappy with, then? What – what else could. Gil?”

_“I’ve been thinking.”_

“Thinking?”

_“Thinking.”_

“Okay? What about?”

“You still there?”

_“Yeah. Yes, I’m here. We should talk about this in person.”_

“When are you coming home?”

_“Soon, John.”_

They talk for only a little while longer – awkward, idle talking that feels too shallow when juxtaposed with the rest of the conversation. It trails for a few minutes, Gil gently inquiring about John’s trip home without asking about the Schuylers or mentioning his abrupt leaving, and John talking about his sister and his father and nothing, really, of substance.

And when Gil says, _“I have to go,”_ John almost tries to persuade him out of it. Almost tells him _I miss you_ , again. Almost goes into how the weeks they had gone without speaking had been long and painful and how he doesn’t want to let him go quite yet.

Instead: “Okay, I’ll let you go.”

_“I’ll see you soon.”_

“Bye, Gil,” he manages, voice small, before he hangs up.

John pushes his face into his pillow and pretends that he’s back in New York. For a moment, before the far-off sound of crashing water and ocean waves comes into his room alongside the breeze, he can almost pretend. For once, for the first time, maybe, he has the entire house to himself – seemingly endless, empty rooms, stilled to silence. When he moves to close the window, John swears he can hear the furnace turning and echoing through the vents.

He texts Peggy not to tell her about Gil and their call, but instead to go on about how awful it feels to be alone. In the city, he’s never alone – between crowded classes and dividing his time with Gil, with Eliza and Alexander, with Peggy and Hercules, moments to be truly alone have been rare. The silence and the size of the house feel overwhelming in the wake of their small apartment, of sleeping in the pocketed guest room at the Schuylers’.

Peggy tells him to stop moping.

And he does – he tries. He stops moping in his room and goes downstairs, pulls cookie dough from the freezer. John spends the rest of his night moping in the den, watching recently-released movies that run on one of the channels that come with the expensive cable package his father pays for and never watches.

The second movie is halfway over when his sister joins him, changed into pajamas, with her own spoon to make him share the cookie dough. “It’s after midnight,” she tells him, settling on the couch beside him.

“Happy New Year,” he offers without feigned or forced excitement.

“Are you okay?” her concern bleeds through, and she nudges his arm with her own. “You’ve been. Even Dad noticed. He asked me if you’re okay, and I don’t want to lie to him.” When John doesn’t answer, she taps the back of her spoon against his knuckles. “Come on, Jack, please. He thinks it’s school, or New York, or something.”

“I’ll talk to him before I leave,” John shrugs.

The promise – though weak, and though it sounds more like something he’d just say to get Hatty off his back – is enough for her to relent. “Alright. Okay.”

Enough for her to relent only momentarily, “Can you talk to me, first?”

She asks about Gil and he answers her questions, tells her about him with the tiniest curve of a smile and a pinch of sadness in his voice. Both ends of the spectrum pull at his heartstrings, tugging him towards the notion of settling into something more permanent with Gil – something that is equal parts natural and unfamiliar, comforting and frightening. Hatty asks if he’s John’s boyfriend and he says, “I don’t know,” followed with, “I’m going to bed,” before he leaves her, half let in, on the couch.


	14. January II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's now or never, John Laurens!

John has already been home for a day and a half when Lafayette’s plane lands. They have only a few days before the new semester starts, and he can only hope that it offers enough of a buffer period for his body to readjust to New York’s time zone. With the infrequency of his travels back home, or otherwise abroad, it feels like each journey is harder and harder to recover from. It’s mid-afternoon when he, heavied with his suitcase and carryon bag, finally makes the climb of the walkup, and Lafayette swears it’s never been this hard before.

He has to stop to catch his breath before rummaging through his bag for his keys. One end of the lanyard they are attached to has begun to fray, pulled apart by wear and the way he rubs it between two fingers while impatiently willing his commute home faster. The lock is stiff with the cold but the door gives easily, opening into the entry without so much as a creak.

There immediate signs that John is home, or has been home become evident to him as Lafayette pulls his rolling suitcase over the bump of the threshold. The dishes that had been left to dry, and then left for as long as they’d both been away, have finally been returned to the overhead cabinet. Had any dust collected on the kitchen table, or the TV console, it’s been wiped and cleaned and tidied.

Lafayette, with his penchant to clean when stressed or bored or sad, finds it uplifting to come into a cleaned apartment. The noise that he makes, closing and locking the door and setting his things down to stow his coat away, is what finally draws John out of his room. He looks adorably tired, as though he’d been woken from a daytime nap, with his hair falling loose from its tie and curling outward as John covers a yawn with one hand and rubs sleep from his eyes with the other.

Seeing Laf in the entryway seems to jolt the sleep out of him.

As John blinks rapidly, staring as though it’s some huge, great surprise that he’s come back, Lafayette settles into a gentle smile. “Hey,” he says.

John approaches him at a pace faster than his normal gait, but he stops a short, safe distance from him. “Hi,” he says, the grit of sleep still in his throat. “Hi, Gil. How was your flight? I – ” he pauses, sentence incomplete and in the air, John presses his lips together before, quietly: “Can I hug you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, opens his arms. John’s warmth against him is immediate.

He hadn’t really realized the cold until that moment, with John’s arms curling around him and pressing his face against his shoulder and breathing in, deep. January is frigid, and their apartment has minimal, aging insulation, but John is always, always warm. Lafayette hugs him tight. He keeps his touch light, with one arm curling down across John’s back and holding his side, the other hand carding through his hair. Pulling the tie out of it completely and pushing the strays behind his ear. In what feels like instinct but likely derives from some small impulse, he dips his head towards John’s and presses kisses against his temple, then down towards his cheekbone.

“My flight was fine,” he finally answers. “It was long. But okay.”

John squeezes him one more time before he pulls back, just enough to tip his head and look at him, just enough for Lafayette to see his smile and for John to be able to reach up and trace the bone leading from his cheek to his jaw with the back of his knuckles.

“Are you tired? Do you want to lie down? Or. Do you.” John shifts his hand lower, curling his palm around the curve of Lafayette’s neck with his fingers finding and pressing against the back. The completion of his sentence is unnecessary; Lafayette knows what John means to ask but lets him finish anyway. “Can we talk? Now?”

Lafayette only asks to put his bags away first, taking them as far as his bedroom doorway before setting them to be unpacked later. He does pause to find his favorite hoodie and pulls it on as he takes way back into the common area. John is where he left him, standing with his hands curled together against his sternum, and his hair falling around his shoulders, puffing into volume as it expands unhindered by the tie that is now secured around Laf’s wrist. He takes a few steps forward to meet Lafayette halfway, in the pass behind their couch.

“Do you. Should we sit?” John gestures towards the couch.

“Yeah. Yes. Come on,” he presses his hand against John’s arm, gently urging him to move and circle round its armrest, so they can sit. So they can talk. He squeezes John’s shoulder before retracting his hand, letting him choose his seat before taking his own.

As they settle, silence falls between them – a twinge of tension prickles up Lafayette’s neck and he tenses his shoulders and the muscles of his back before relaxing them and loosening the nerves away. He watches as John draws both legs up and crosses them under himself, as he turns so that he’s mostly facing Lafayette, back against the couch’s arm.

“Okay,” John says. His tone has an asking quality to it, like it’s the start of something, but John only sits, mouth just parted, as if the words are there but caught. He watches as John’s lips part wider to pull a deep breath, and how it stutters with a bit of his own nerves in the exhale. He watches as John’s mouth turns up into an anxious smile, one accompanied by an insincere laugh and only a small flash of his teeth. “Okay,” he repeats.

“John, if you want to take time before we talk. You can.”

“No, no. No, we have a few days before classes start again, we – we should do this now. I mean – unless you don’t want to. If you need time, we can take time, it’s just – ” as uncertainty rises in John’s voice, Lafayette reaches a careful hand to him, places it on his knee as he shushes.

“Calm down, it’s okay.” He waits for John to take a breath. “Do you want to start with…”

“Us?” John supplies, apprehensive with the return of his smile.

Lafayette withdraws his hand, instead folding them in his bent knee as he turns towards John, pulling one of his legs onto the couch, and tucking his foot under his other thigh. “Yeah, us,” he agrees. As it becomes evident that John doesn’t know where to start, stuck on his pause, he continues, asking: “What do you mean when you say that?”

John twists his lips, tries to find what he wants to say – with his tendency to run with his first thought and crash into problems, he is trying very hard to contain himself. To, at the very least, offer consideration before he speaks.

“I think,” he starts, deliberate in his slow way of speaking. Another hiccup, a hesitation that appears less anxious and more intentional, as John scoots a bit closer and takes one of Lafayette’s hands in both of his own. His palms have gone just barely clammy, but his fingers are warm as he rubs them into Lafayette’s palm and traces the lines across it. “I think that I.” A frown overtakes his face, dissolving the remnants of his smile, as he presses the pad of his thumb hard against the first knuckles of Lafayette’s fingers. His breath stutters again. “I mean,” he steals a glance, “You. What have you been thinking?”

Lafayette recognizes it as a nervous change of conversation and reaches out with his other hand, using it to cover one of John’s. There is more for them to talk about – more, past the scope of their phone call.

“I have been thinking about many things,” he says, though he fails to elaborate until John meets his gaze with a sustained, pleading look. “Not just you, or us,” he continues. The word feels unfamiliar on his tongue, the very fact that they’ve come together to even try to talk about their relationship offers the relief that it’s happening mixed with the trepidation that it won’t end favorably. “I’ve. I have been considering everything in my life, I think,” and the talking sounds finished there, like it’s due for a response.

John’s hand tightens around his, the edge of his nails just biting into his skin. “Like… What do you mean?”

He watches John’s expression pull into a sort of borderline-petrified, nervous widening of his eyes and raising of his eyebrows. He presses his lips together before starting to worry it, his shoulders hunching as the nerves begin to overtake his entire body language.

Lafayette sighs heavily, burdened with the same weight on his shoulders and the pressure that only seems to amount with the twisting through his chest. It had been gone, absent with the exception of a twinge, a dull reminder, while he was away. Just being near to John has stirred it back to life, that more overwhelming ache that soothes only with steady, deep breaths. He settles back into the couch, forcing the loosening of his muscles, and turns his gaze to the ceiling as he decides careful word choice.

With one hand retracted from John’s, he smooths the pinch of his eyebrows and massages his forehead, willing away the tired, travel headache that’s building behind it.

“Just. Everything. Being home, it made me realize. That I think I dedicated myself to some things without the consideration I should have taken.” The explanation is vague, and he knows this, but he doesn’t know how to tell John that in the weeks he’d been gone, he had reconsidered every fragment of his life in New York.

“What – what does that mean?” John doesn’t try to hide the anxiety in his tone, voice going tight and high and Lafayette won’t look at him. “Are you going to leave? Gil?” in his state, patience is not a virtue that John is willing to indulge in and instead pulls Laf’s arm by the hand he still has hold of. “Is – is this what you meant on the phone? Why you wanted to do this in person?”

Although the time that passes without a response is only seconds, it drags on. Lafayette doesn’t see that John’s anxiety has turned into something more akin to desperation until he scales the distance between them and grabs his face to force Lafayette to look at him. But he doesn’t speak. He just looks. Lafayette follows John’s eyes, follows them as they trace his face and try to find meaning in his expression.

“You are so impossible to read,” he says, finally. He’s sitting with his knee pressing uncomfortably against Lafayette’s ankle, both hands still holding his face where John wants it.

“I don’t know what I want.”

“ _What._ That’s it? That’s all you can say?” Confusion mixes into John’s expression and it pulls at his features in a way that makes Lafayette’s chest squeeze unhappily. He lifts his hands, rubs his palms against John’s forearms in an effort to soothe him. John’s hands fall to rest against his shoulders, pushing him a little farther back into the cushion as his weight comes against him. Lafayette holds his wrists. “Are you going back?” he asks, his voice quieted but his expression unsoothed.

Lafayette pauses, drops his gaze to the side. “I don’t know.”

“Look at me, please look at me. Gil, what about. What about school? And – and – what about – you’ve been living here for years, what about. What about me?”

And the way that he _sounds_ is nearly enough to break Lafayette’s heart. Enough to keep his gaze trained on the faint, faded pattern on the fabric of the couch cushions.

“I have been thinking, I haven’t decided anything, John,” he sighs.

John recoils, slowly, as if he isn’t sure whether he wants to or not, but the need to do so is there. Lafayette relaxes his hands, lets John pull away from him without a fight, and watches John settle back into the corner and feels his weight shift the cushion. He sighs, again, more tensely and pinches his eyes closed against tension.

Silence prevails.

“Gil. Am I. Are we too late?”

“No,” is his immediate response despite not knowing. Where they stand, or where they’re going, he isn’t sure, but he can’t shut this down. Uncertainty holes itself in his chest, making friends with his thuddering heart and Lafayette wants nothing else but to reach out and make things calm and quiet and nice, even if just for a moment.

“Then. Then what about us?” John’s voice goes quiet and meek, like he’s afraid to ask. Afraid not to ask. Afraid of what the answer might be, afraid of being and not being with him.

“What do you want, John?”

Immediately: “You. Always you.”

It fills his chest. Lafayette hums as he adds it to the tides of his considering thoughts, and he knows that no matter the circumstance – his friends here, and John, will hold the heaviest weight in where his decision falls. His dilemma has come from the realization, sudden and sharp, that if he continues through the motions of his schooling, and pursues that to the furthest extent, Lafayette can’t say that he would end up happy, or satisfied. Returning to his home, to the countryside and to Paris, had offered something that made the city feel less like home.

“We’ll figure it out,” he promises, and finally turns to look at John again. His face has fallen into a less stricken expression, one that reads more as quiet, wired anxiety. He watches as John rubs his nails with the pad of his thumb, as though trying to keep himself from tearing at the skin. He shifts. Reaches to still John’s hands. “I’m not going anywhere until we do.”

He feels badly for having even brought it up, heart worse for wear and the heaviness depositing itself back into place, sitting on his chest. Lafayette watches the orange light from the sunset filter through the blinds, hue dimmed with the dreariness of winter. The snow outside has gone ugly and grey with the salt treatment of roads and the wear of cars and boots. As the warmth of the sun leaves, the slush will all go to ice. They should stay in tomorrow, he decides. Decides that he won’t leave the apartment, even, until he and John break surface, or at least make headway.

“I didn’t leave because of you,” he tells John. Looks straight at him. The energy looks sucked out of him, making even his hair go limp, wilting with the dullness that has ebbed at the light in his eyes. He swallows hard, waits for John to look at him. “I was thinking of going home anyway, I just. I had poor timing.”

“You don’t need to baby me,” John says, eventually. “I know you were upset, and – and I. I mean, I guess I knew, even before. it all happened. Y’know?”

He catches a glimpse of John’s eyes, a quick glance, but he doesn’t know. Shakes his head.

“Like, I knew that we… that it wasn’t, uh, sustainable, or like – it wasn’t just. I think that I knew you wanted more, or – I mean.” John’s shoulders tense, visible in a slight hunch that wrinkles the sleeves of his shirt, and fall only when he clears his throat. “Am I – am I right in my assumption?” his next glance is more sustained eye contact, maintained and unwavering as he continues: “Did you want more? Then? Do you want more? Do you.”

“Yeah. Yes, John, you’re right,” he assures. Reaches out again, carefully this time, to put his palm against John’s shoulder. The other presses still against the back of John’s hand.

“I was scared, before.”

“Are you still scared?”

“I don’t know if I can be.”

John’s answer confuses him. They talk themselves in circles. Lafayette listens as John finally admits to what Eliza had prompted him with, nearly accused him of, that he’d been reluctant and afraid to pursue anything further or real. But he reveals little else. He listens, and is gentle in his delivery, as he tells John how confused he’d been made by his reactions to things. Alludes to the hurt that it had left him with, grasping for straws and rhyme or reason. He scoots closer as they talk, taking to instead pull John against him, arms around him. A comfort in less than savory conversation, recounting times that had hurt to press on.

John apologizes and Lafayette tells him that he doesn’t need to. That getting it out is enough. That they aren’t reconciling, never needed to. That he was always, always going to come back, and John tips his head to rest against Lafayette’s shoulder. Hand on his knee, the other holding loosely to the crook of his elbow.

No matter how much they talk, it feels unfinished. Slowly, they take their circles in, coming to the pinpoint of what the entirety of their strife had been focused on. Yet, even as the unspoken remains plainly in the air, and as they hold each other close, Lafayette feels unsure, still, of where they stand. He knows that John has been more openly honest than he ever has been before, relinquishing bottled emotions and entrusting them in Lafayette’s hands without hesitation.

Most of it encompasses that reluctance, the hot-and-cold that had left Lafayette at a loss, explained with the pairing of John’s reservations about a relationship. He uses that word. He uses it, but Laf isn’t sure if it means anything.

He has to ask: “Does this mean that you. Do you want. a relationship?”

It’s only a little awkward. Worse, when John takes an impossibly long pause before he answers:

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, I just – I. I don’t know.”

Lafayette can’t help but to feel a little gutted. All the hope that had lifted him, helped him into the comfort of maybe it all wouldn’t feel so bad, anymore, feels half-stifled under a boot’s heel. The breath is takes goes involuntarily deep, stuttering as he inhales and shakes when he exhales. John starts to speak, quiets when shushed, and Lafayette hugs him a bit tighter before pulling away. He scorns himself, knowing that he should have known better, that it all couldn’t be fixed in one night. That they could have talked for hours more than they already did, and still come up short.

Come up right where they are now.

Their conversation fades with the last of the evening light, and Lafayette murmurs something about going to sleep. Though early by his schedule, it isn’t unreasonable, and John is willing to let him go with a squeeze of his hand. Lafayette lets John keep his hand as he stands, the heaviness right back in his chest. Twisting its way through holes that had felt closed. His breath comes out in a sigh as he looks at John looking up at him. Lafayette bends to press a kiss against John’s forehead after sweeping stray hairs out of the way.

“We can try to talk more in the morning, yes?” he asks, keeping their faces close. The light warmth of John’s breath hovers over his chin.

“Yeah,” John says. Quiet and regretful. He opens his mouth to say something more, moving with the momentum of words that get caught in the back of his throat. It’s enough to cause Lafayette to pause, expectant, hopeful for some newfound acceptance. Instead, John swallows the words, and says: “We can, yeah. Whenever you wanna.”

His hope comes out with his breath. “Goodnight, John.”

Lafayette goes to sleep alone, but not without difficulty. He can hear John making quiet noise: his footsteps on the creaky floorboard in the hallway, the opening and closing of his door and when he shuffles in his room. He can just barely hear the lull of his music: a comfort, something that makes it feel more like home, again. He has to sleep, eventually, exhausted from the long day of traveling, the change of time zones, the emotionally draining conversation and realization that they might just be right back where they started. 

Back where they started, a bit more understanding, a bit more on the same foot, flipping through to the same page.

He almost pulls his blankets over his head, as if it would help him to keep his thoughts at bay. Like he can’t look forward at the stagnant pace he feels stuck in, like the attempt was good but just short of enough.

Sleep comes eventually.

Halfway into a dream, Lafayette starts awake. John’s shaking his shoulder and his face is closer than expected when he comes to. Lafayette swears under his breath.

“There are quieter ways to wake someone up,” he starts to say, but John cuts him off:

“Yes.”

Stupid with sleep, Lafayette only pinches his face, not understanding.

“What?”

“Yes, I wanna be with you,” John tells him.

The heaviness of sleep dissipates immediately. As Lafayette sits up, John leans back. He’s kneeling on Lafayette’s bed and rests his weight back on his heels, nerves pulling his lip between his teeth. Lafayette rubs the residue of sleep out of one eye and asks John to repeat himself.

“I want to be with you. I know now, I – ” John pauses to move forward on his knees and sit next to him. One of his legs stretches out behind Lafayette, the other bent underneath it. “I know now. If you still want me.”

Lafayette holds his hope, asking provisionally: “Are you sure?”

John nods, biting his smile. His hair is still loose, its tie still around Lafayette’s wrist, and moves with the motion. He doesn’t ask before kissing him, taking John’s face in both hands, his fingers fitting against his curls. Lafayette feels John’s smile go unhindered, breath a happy sigh, before he’s kissed back with both of John’s hands curling into his shirt. They pull him closer by the fabric; the bone of John’s shin presses against his hip before he moves his leg over Lafayette’s lap. He moves closer until he can’t anymore, until Lafayette drops one hand to press against the mattress and push him back – just slightly, just enough to put him at an angle, not against the bed, close as they can get.

Laf breaks the kiss with a smile he can’t contain anymore, happiness bleeding in with breathlessness, he barely pulls away. Their lips just brush against one another and John presses lighter kisses to his smile, the corner of his mouth, his jaw and cheek.

He could live in this moment forever: his chest expands unhindered, the light feeling traveling up his throat and not settling. He hopes he isn’t dreaming. His headache left to the giddying, head-in-the-clouds buzz. He smooths his hand down John’s side, riding his shirt up just enough to touch his skin, curve his palm around the top of his hipbone.

He manages his smile enough to kiss, kiss, kiss him.

In between the kisses, John asks: “Do you wanna be with me?”

In between more: “Yes, yes, you don’t even have to ask.” He could kiss John forever. Stay here, forever. “I’ve wanted this for. so long,” he relents to admit, drawn back but still close, eyes closed, pressing his nose against John’s cheek.

“Yeah, I know,” John whispers. Touches the parts of his face that he can reach, rubs his thumb along the edge of his jaw. Rests his forehead against Lafayette’s temple. Lafayette can feel his breath as he draws it in and lets it out. “I’m sorry I took so long,” he continues. “I’m sorry that I was scared.”

Lafayette rubs his thumb against the bottom of John’s ribcage, where his hand had moved in his kissing, and his smile keeps without falter. “It’s okay,” he says. Spreads his hand over his back. “I have you now, it’s okay.”

They kiss each other sleepy. John leans back and pulls Lafayette with him. Finding how they fit together is effortless, shifting so limbs won’t fall asleep too quickly. John’s hands touch his face and his neck and his arms, seeking out any stretch of skin that they can find. As John traces lines on his side, trailing up his chest, Lafayette finds the heaviness of sleep pulling with increasing strength. He manages to force back a yawn and settles into a tired, contented smile as he nuzzles his face into the mane of John’s hair. As John presses his lips against his cheekbone. As he gently scratches Lafayette’s back, lulling him to sleep.

He doesn’t wake up alone. More importantly, he wakes up next to John Laurens. John, who has Lafayette’s quilt bunched up around his arms and has his face pressed into Lafayette’s pillow and has bedhead that has manifested in tangles that look painful. His mouth is just parted, face completely relaxed in deep sleep. Lafayette’s uncontained smile returns, and he takes the moment to commit it to memory.

As lightly as he can manage, he takes the back of his knuckles against John’s cheek. Pushes hair out of his face and works some of the tangles out of his hair.

They still have too much to figure out, more than the light of one morning sunrise can offer them to figure out, but – he’s contented, for now. Happier than he’s been in a long time. Lafayette props himself up with his elbow, careful not to rouse John from sleep, as his heart warms his chest. He combs his fingers through John’s hair and rubs his palm down his arm and his back, through the blankets. Still asleep, John’s arms uncurl, reaching out until they find Lafayette’s warmth, a place for his sleepy body to roll towards.

It’s still early. He’s on French time. But he’d stay in bed all day, if that’s what John wanted. All day, cradling John against him. He lies back onto his side, accepting the lazy morning, shifting his arms with one around John and the other eased under the pillow and his head.

“I’m happy,” he whispers, knows that John can’t hear him. The weight of distress from problems with John had added to an overall feeling – one that has vanished, now, gone to sleep for the winter days. There is more to that feeling than only this, only their relationship – but those are all things that he has time for. Time later. They’ll talk, later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	15. January III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lazy, lazy mornings. Things are all okay.

As John finally starts to ease out of sleep, he’s still wrapped up in Lafayette’s sheets, with them all hunched around his middle and his arm stretched out across Gil’s stomach. The other is bent awkwardly between them, his hand having gone numb to the slight sensation of pins and needles. He’d drawn even closer in sleep, cuddled up to Gil’s warmth, into his touch, and awake he’s contented to stay tucked against his arm, face nestled into his shoulder, for as long as he’d be allowed. Gil hasn’t yet noticed that he’s awake, passing idle time on his phone.

John sighs gently, shifting as though still in sleep, without catching his attention. As much as he would like to have it, he can’t help but fear that the proper start of their morning will cause the whole thing to crash around them. He’d been possessed to come in and wake Gil in the bare hours of morning, prompted the whole way by his chest hallowing, hurting with remorse. Because at the end of the day, he’d been aching so badly for exactly what had been placed before him.

He had taken time, lying in bed with his arms held in front of him, the weak speakers of his laptop going full volume and still not quite loud enough. It helps him think, helped him think. Helped him map out the weight of his decision in points quantified in a haphazardly organized counting on his fingers. Some half curled, others raised, some tapping the air around his palm incessantly, in what became a tangible representation of his thought process.

And it had all come to a screeching halt. A halt, as the pitted fear that Gil might leave, should all go south or to shit, had swelled to overcome him. It had risen to fill the gap left in his chest, stinging it like salt in a wound. It had been enough. The winter break, and the weeks long and painful with next to no communication with Gil, a foreboding cloud that prickled his skin like the heavy, humid air of an oncoming thunderstorm. A prickle of potential, of things to come. It had felt like, should he hold off any longer, the opportunity might pass him by. Regardless of what Gil had said, promised, or assured, that he might go anyway.

It feels far away now, like waking up with a hangover: headache behind the eyes, masked by sleep and edged out by the grogginess. Except he isn’t hungover, and he feels only an irritating itch of dryness behind his eyelid as he presses his face into Gil’s warm neck. No heavy, aching worry. No hurt seeded in his chest and no panic rising up his throat. John squeezes his eyes shut tight before opening them and blinking away the sleep.

“Good morning,” he mumbles, finally lets his alertness be known. With a gentle mouth, he kisses up Gil’s neck to the hollow of his jaw. Shifts to hug his arm closer around Gil, moves to peer at what he’s scrolling through on his phone. Immediately boring, emails and walls of text. “How long have you been up?”

“A while,” he says as he puts his phone to sleep and sets it on his stomach. John watches his chest rise and fall with the deepness of his inhale, like he might be readying himself for something. But instead of saying more, he moves his phone onto the bed next to him and turns onto his side, facing John, both arms around him. “A while,” again, quieter this time.

John smiles at him, tired and happy, as he takes his hand up Gil’s back to hold his shoulder. “Hi, sweetheart,” he says as Gil touches his face, fingertips against his temple and the joint of his jaw. He melts as he pushes his hand into his hair, slows to stop when it catches in the thickness of tangles and curls. John presses his half-asleep hand against the inside of his forearm as it stills.

The inside of his hand, up through his fingers, tingles with the movement. He tips his head to kiss Gil’s arm where he holds it, his wrist, his palm.

“Do you want to get up?”

“No, no. Not yet. Not yet.” Gil tucks John’s hair behind his ear as he speaks. Brings his hand to touch his jaw and tip his head up, towards him, and John lets him. Lets Gil kiss him, slow and steady, because it’s okay, now. It’s more than okay, now. He cups his face in both hands. Legs between both of Gil’s as his hand trails down John’s neck, side, to press against his skin underneath his shirt. His touch is firm enough to keep him where he is, holding and then guiding when he moves over him, but still light. He rubs his thumb against John’s hipbone.

As they shift, John presses his hands against Gil’s shoulders, holding him where he wants him. Until Gil’s other hand goes to press his shirt up, ride it up more, and John pushes back. Breath that catches in his throat shakes when it comes out, and he breaks into a smile to assure that all is still okay.

“Maybe,” he says, words snuck into his exhale, “not right now.”

John curls his fingers to press against his collarbone, against the dip where his clavicle meets shoulder.

“Maybe, later. Later?” He looks up, wide-eyed, to watch Lafayette’s expression as he nods.

“Of course, yeah,” he says as he leans back onto his knees. They press down into the mattress at either side of John’s hips.

“You want breakfast? I can go get something. I didn’t, I didn’t do the shopping, or anything.”

“If you want,” Gil says. He pulls his hands out from underneath John’s shirt, but keeps them held against the waist of his pants, even as John sits up, using his hands on Gil’s shoulders as leverage.

He pauses upright, one leg coming up, bending at the knee. Curls his arms around Gil to kiss the slight curve of his smile. He lets him kiss back, almost lets him push them back into the same place they’d just been before John pulls away, ghost of a laugh, a smile that breaks wide enough for a flash of teeth.

“Okay, okay,” he says. Voice a whisper before he clears his throat and starts again, voice louder: “Okay. I’m, I’m gonna. Go get breakfast.” He drops his gaze, still smiling but now a bit nervous, maybe. His fingers itch, restless hands that move down over Gil’s chest. “I’ll be. right back. Okay?”

 _Okay,_ Gil says as John slips out from under the covers, and leaves him to watch him move out of bed. To watch as he stretches his arms over his head, stretch onto his toes, and straighten his shirt out. John reaches to push his hair behind his ears, one hand reaching for the elastic that isn’t around his wrist. He spares a glance around the room before his gaze returns to Gil. Watches as he pulls the tie from his wrist and extends his hand to offer it.

 And Gil watches him tie his hair back, watches him pull the sweatshirt he’d been wearing the night before out of his open suitcase.

He comes back for one last, lingering kiss, saying, “I’ll be right back, right back.”

Gil holds him by one hand and the back of his neck. “Hey, John?” he asks.

“Hm?” he goes expectant, open, questioning eyes. Not scared, or pleading, nothing akin to the stricken anxiety that had taken him the night before.

“Are you scared?”

“No, no,” with a shake of his head. “Not anymore.”

“Don’t be nervous, either?” he says – asks? – gently. “Whatever you want, we don’t have to – ”

“I know, Gil. I know. I’m. I know.” John forces a smile that eases into soft and genuine. He touches his face, traces the edge cut into his beard with one fingertip. Can’t help another kiss. Another, with Gil’s hands holding his sides, tugging him by the pocket of the sweatshirt. Another, that he allows Gil to press more kisses into, nearly lets him pull him back to bed before he tugs away, turns his head back to keep Gil from finding his mouth again. “Okay, okay,” he says, _again._ “I’m gonna go – down the street, yeah? That good? I’ll be right back.”

He finds Lafayette’s hands, uses them once he has them held in his own, to push him back on to the bed.

“Don’t go anywhere?”

“I would never,” he assures, gentle smile, as he settles back, blankets drawn up over his chest.

And so he goes. John stops at the door, finding his shoes and winter coat and wallet before taking down the stairs. Even in the midmorning, melted slightly by the sun, the early January air is frigid and bites at his exposed skin, even at that which is covered by the layers of clothing. He shudders against the cold and pulls his coat closer, the hood of Gil’s sweatshirt over his head. It offers a gentle warmth, like he’d just been wearing it, and smells purely of Gil, and his deodorant, and just faintly of the fragrance he wears only on occasion.

John takes down the sidewalk, following the path of plowed concrete and crossing intersections to find the block of storefronts, local owned shops, and the bakery he’s come for. It’s a quaint shop with a smiling woman at the register, flour covering her apron and her shirt and in her hair, even. She’s the owner, and recognizes John, and offers him soft scones, cherry and almond and honey, still warm from baking. He takes a couple, and she adds a pair of blueberry and lemon muffins – large, bulbous tops with swirls of purple from berries that had burst in the oven – and house-made bagels, poppy seeds baked into the bread, and a small carton of cream cheese.

He pays with cash and tucks the singles she makes change with into the tip jar at the end of the counter.

The walk back feels longer; he can almost see the heat radiating out into the cold from the paper bag, and nearly slips on the slush that’s accumulated at the curb, along the intersection just before the entrance to their building. He has to settle himself, bare hand grabbing out for the light pole. It’s cold enough to send a goosebumps racing up his arm, a shiver following it and a noise of surprise with his sharp inhale.

He’s had time to think, alone, shuffling through the wet snow and slush and focus drawn pointedly to the past hours. The bundle of nerves is compartmented away, tucked in his stomach to hide. Away from his heart, away from the radiation of love coming from its innermost chambers. Happiness. The anticipation that pulls his lips, wide, into a smile that he bites down on as he pushes through the front door.

Up the stairs. He takes each flight faster, and fumbles with the doorknob to get inside, fast as he can. His coat at the door, on the floor, shoes toed out of and left steps apart in the hall. He grins in the doorway, trading the bag of food from either hand as he pushes the sleeves of Gil’s sweater to the elbow and hands the bag to him as he stands at the side of their bed.

“Is it still warm?” John asks, watching as he investigates the contents of the bag.

“Yeah. Yes, it is,” he says, passing John a glance and then a doubletake that he maintains. “Are you. going to sit?”

“Oh! I, um, yeah. Yeah, I’ll sit,” he stumbles. Flashes another one of his nervous smiles. Don’t be nervous. The bag crinkles in Gil’s touch as he moves it to accommodate John, and as he lets it go to take both of John’s cold hands in his. Gil cups his hands, lifts and breathes out into them to help the warmth along. As he rubs his palms against John’s, the blood starts to thaw his fingertips, life coming back. John sits with his legs tucked under him, watching his hands, fingers following the curve down to Gil’s wrist. Faintly, under his pointer, he can feel Gil’s pulse: steady, even, not too fast.

Slow, in comparison to his own quick heart.

“Hand me a scone?” he asks, voice clogged in his throat.

He obliges, makes conversation to ask where he went. Listens to John as he talks about the little bakery he’d found on a neighborhood walk he’d taken after first moving in, taken to orient himself with the new area. It hadn’t been new, really, and John stumbles on that. He’d spent more time at Gil’s apartment than his own when he started his transition between leases. It’s just, he didn’t exactly leave the apartment or acquaint himself with the surrounding area when he was there. It was all Gil.

It’s still, all Gil.

The conversation doesn’t die, and John’s nerves soothe over enough for him to smile and joke and blush and fluster when Lafayette laughs. It makes him feel like a teenager with a crush, the way his heart flutters in his chest. Butterflies in his stomach, all over a smile. Over the way that the warmth and light stays in his eyes, the affection steadfast in his gaze even as the smile fades and he presses his lips together.

“Try this,” John says, breaking a piece of the scone off (Lafayette has a bagel, half eaten and smeared with the cream cheese). “Here, open,” he says, shifting closer. He feeds it to him, and licks the caramelized sugar crystals off of the pads of his fingers.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What?”

“About this place,” he clarifies. Pulls the bag to examine it, and the logo printed onto the paper.

“Oh. I don’t know. Though you knew, or something,” he shrugs.

“I wish I did.”

John trades half of the pastry for half of what remains of Gil’s bagel, and they both consider one of the muffins in the bag before deciding that it is, in fact, entirely too much for two people to handle. John takes careful time in folding the bag closed, tight enough to hold without the sandwich clip he’ll seal it with later.

“You want coffee?”

The answer is always yes. When he leaves with the bag, he’ll put on a pot. Since Gil’s had more time to wake up, he’s brighter than a usual morning, even without his coffee. Usually he’d be in bed, willing himself up and awake for a while (how long depended on the day) before he’d emerge. John is watching the pot fill when Gil comes up behind him, wearing his quilt, and curls his arms and the blanket around John’s waist. Chin dipped to rest on his shoulder. Finding his way past the wrinkles in the hood of the sweatshirt to his neck, to press his lips against it.

“Hi.”

“Are you okay?”

“Uh huh. Just wanted coffee. Food’s in the cabinet, if you want more.” Lafayette sighs against his throat, but doesn’t step away, though the breath out sounds like he might want to. John folds his nervous hands where Laf’s meet at his navel. “Everything okay?”

“I am if you are.” A pause. “ _Are_ you?”

“Yeah. Yes, I am. I am. Promise.” He turns in Gil’s arms, only enough to find his temple and kiss it. “Promise, sweetheart,” he assures.

And he is. He is, but there’s something. Something cut by the weight of the arms against his stomach, struck down by the beep of the coffee maker as the last dregs of coffee pass through the filter.  Neither of them move to pour mugs. Something, even as Gil urges him to turn completely and presses the small of his back against the counter. Something like a dull reminder, a headache that pulses at the base of his skull and at each temple. The quilt catches on his shoulders, threatens to fall. John takes both hands into its fabric and uses it to pull him closer, closer, and finds skin to kiss. With Gil sufficiently close, he traces his fingers over his sides under the blanket, stopping both palms on his chest.

“As long as I have you,” he whispers, and makes move to look him in the eyes. “I have you, and I’m okay.”

“You’re sweet,” Gil tells him. Small smile, small crescent of his teeth.  

The kiss that comes is expected, the familiar press of lips against his own. The body that presses against his palms and pushes him harder against the counter, but his touch is soft. Soft, and on his hips. Barely felt through the layers of clothing. His hands take around the bare curve of ribcage, fingers finding place in the spaces between ribs, the barest of leverage to bring him closer, closer, with each break for breath between kisses.

He follows to maintain the last kiss as Gil starts to pull back. That big smile overcoming them eventually, laughter mixed in as he catches his breath.

“Can we spend every day like this?” John asks, complete seriousness. “Every morning? I wanna wake up next to you, every morning.”

“Yeah. Yes, I want that too.” Hands nudge the sweatshirt up to touch skin, and the quilt falls to the linoleum.

His turn to smile. “You promise?”

“Yeah. Yes.” Sealed with a kiss. Sealed over coffee, finally poured.

They’re nearing out of sugar, and John has to scrape the remnants out of the bottom of the bag with a spoon. He tips it into his mug, same mug, gift from Peggy, but they’re out of cream.

“It went bad,” he says. Face still pulled with the acrid smell of soured milk after dumping it down the sink, faucet running in full. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry,” repeated when asked why he’s apologizing. Then: “Fuck – I just – you know what I mean.” Reassurance manifests in a warm palm rubbed into the tension budding under his shoulder. A bit of ease comes over him.

“We can buy more tomorrow.”

They take the mugs back to bed, Lafayette pulling the quilt over one arm as he makes down the hall. John takes the muffin that they’d mulled over with him. Gil’s bed is a nest waiting for him to come back to as he peels the wrapper from the sweet bread. He settles into the nest. Settles into Gil’s warmth. Into the curl of his arm and the squeeze of his hug and the touch of his lips on his forehead.

“Hey, come here,” Lafayette says, though his arms are already hugged around John’s middle and drawing him close and keeping him there. “Share with me, share that.” He relents one of his hugging arms to take the bits of muffin that John breaks off for him.

The uncomfortable combination of nerves and contentedness settles over him, skin prickling with goosebumps as Gil’s hand comes to touch his jaw. To tilt his face towards him.

“Hey, are you mine? Can I call you mine?”

His vision goes unfocused, settled on Gil’s eyes but blurred with the hammer of his heart in his chest, blood heating under his skin, pooling in his chest and spreading across his cheeks. Gils is much, much closer than he’d thought. And smiles as he takes his thumb over the reddening blush. His lip trembles, only sign of the touch of anxiety that rushes and radiates through him.

“I’m yours,” he whispers, nodding against the palm that’s come to cup his face. “Yours.”

A kiss is expected but doesn’t come; their faces pull closer, foreheads resting against each other, noses finding place against cheeks.

“Can it just be us? For – for a little while, please?”

“What do you mean?”

“I just. don’t want anyone to. I just want it to be us, maybe, until we.” John gestures emptily with one hand as the words don’t come. An attempt to bring them forward. “Do you know what I mean?”

“I don’t think so, baby.”

His breath all comes out with that, note of endearment. John all but tips forward, catches himself on Gil’s shoulders. The arms around him go tighter, shift to hold him closer, enough that he has to shift his legs over, around his hips.

“I just wanna be us, for a while. No one else. Like, I don’t want to see anyone or go anywhere, and I just,”

“Yeah. Yes, okay. Just us.” Hands rub against his sides. Shifted enough for John to hide his face in the crook of his neck and the comfort overwhelms all else.

“Just us, just us,” whispered like a secret, or a promise, or a prayer. Because it all still scares him, he thinks about Gil and the future and this time his heart stops. It doesn’t vanish, not like before, only pauses, skips, and shrivels under the arid breath of trepidation. Even baby steps feel like miles and mountains and John wants nothing more but to stay in bed, in Gil’s bed, wrapped up in him for as long as he’d be allowed.

Worry, and the way it overcomes, leaves a soured taste in the back of his throat. Jackhammer heart. The sweetness of the kisses pressed against his mouth dull it, but only dull it. Anything more than the slightest of urging, the lightest of touches, the smallest of steps, sits on his chest. Silence rings in the air, broken only by the gentle sound of kisses, lips pressed against skin. Gil kisses like they might never again, multiples of touches of lips both lingering and chaste.

“Will you still be mine even if you leave?” he asks between them.

“I’m not leaving, never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things were supposed to happen this chapter and instead, things did not. (But next time! certainly!)
> 
> \- just as a note, though, i have officially started classes again, which means that my updating schedule will be even less predictable than it was before. i will try my very best to get chapters out at least semi-regularly, but i have a feeling that my time to write will be much more limited to weekends from here on out.


	16. January IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Lafayette and John leave the house for the first time in a week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my formal apology for how *long* this update took. School and work have gotten me busier than I thought they would, but hopefully as I settle into my routine I'll find more time to write and edit but - 
> 
> here we are! ft wine drunk eliza and ft my early twenties aesthetic of all hangouts involving beer and/or wine

They spend the rest of the week, and nearly the entire weekend, just like that. As he’d promised, Lafayette is there every morning when John wakes up. As he acclimates back to New York time, his usual morning disposition returns, too. Mumbled words and eyes kept closed against the morning sun, even as it stays hidden behind the persistent winter clouds. Face pressed into the pillow, into John’s neck, into his hair. Kisses against his face are enough to draw forth a tired smile, before the whispered promise of coming back with coffee as John’s warmth leaves him.

They’ve started off every morning, just like this. Normalcy returned, equilibrium adjusted, and provisions made for the introduction of the new. John is almost always awake before him, but rarely moves to get up before he wakes up. He stays, cuddled up as close as he’d been in sleep: both arms and legs fit around and against him, chest pressed to his side. It’s different, waking up so totally wrapped up in him, feeling his heartbeat against his side, and its small uptake as he shifts to hold him by the waist.

Not a bad, different. Just, different.

But the half-week that it goes on causes Lafayette to wonder, if maybe he should clear drawers in his dresser for John’s things, make space in the closet and on his desk. It lets him wonder, too, if John’s old tendency to already be up, sometimes already out of bed, sometimes dressed, sometimes already having left, had been borne of something other than what he’d thought it had been. With the exception of retrieving clean clothes after a shower, John hasn’t left Lafayette’s room for his own at all. With the exception of going for food, he hasn’t left the apartment, either.

It had been like this before, too, when John was still technically living at the studio but edged his way into stretching the few hours of a visit into a day, a day and a half, an entire weekend. Sleep in his bed, steal his clothes, John had even begun to pack a toothbrush in his daybag. Distance had been marked out between them, lines drawn in sand, when John had slept on the couch to ride out the last few weeks of his old roommate’s lease.

Most nights.

Most nights, he kept to the couch. Some nights, he’d sleep with Lafayette.

It had slowed to a stop in the last month before his roommate was due to move to Ithaca, for his graduate school orientation and to settle in a new apartment, new town, new scenery. He’d been sure that John had overheard the, _“Hey, can you and your boyfriend – or, you know, whoever – keep it down?”_ that he’d been asked one of the mornings after one of the nights that John had slept with him. Though nothing was meant by it, it had been enough to put their thing on ice even after the lease officially switched over, and John had stayed in his own room for weeks.

Until the dam broke, until the floodgates welled over, until he couldn’t stay anymore.

This time around, Lafayette has the itching suspicion that there couldn’t be much that would urge John back into his own room. After he collects his change of clothes from his room, he comes back to Lafayette’s door. He hugs his clothes against the shirt he’d slept in, rumpled and wrinkled and its sleeve edging off his shoulder. The tie that holds his hair is coming loose, letting his hair fall half-out. He’d just gotten up, just slipped out of bed after his good morning kiss.

“You wanna take a shower?” he asks from the door. Lingers.

A smile tugs his lips. “Do you want to take a shower?”

“Yeah. I feel gross.” John pushes his fingers through his hair, combing it back over the crest of his head. He rubs his fingers against the end of his shirt in an attempt to rid them of a greasy feeling, maybe. “Come with me?”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

John says _mhm_ , as he approaches, comes back to bedside, pulls and pushes the covers to find his hand, and asks if he would, please. How could he possibly say no. The shared shower sounds great, conceptually. In practice it is a lot more careful placement of limbs and struggling to not be left standing, cold, out of the spray of the water. He’s too tall for the shower most days, has to bend to wet his hair or wash his face, but the stall goes cramped with company. Even John’s company.  The only nice thing is the way John seems to melt under his touch as he pulls the tie out of John’s hair and works his fingers through to lather it with soap.

“If we move, we should find a place that has a taller shower. For you,” he says, offhand, almost idly. As if it means nothing. It does – passing thought he gave voice to, and he might not fully realize what he said until:

“Yeah?” his tone borders, falling into territory that just reveals that he’d been taken off guard. Since he’d come home, they hadn’t had any more bouts of emotionally taxing conversations and – this is hardly the time, or place.

“Yeah. Wouldn’t you want that?” John squints against a bubble of shampoo and rubs it out of his eye with the back of his thumb.

He considers it as he helps the rest of the shampoo washes out of John’s hair. And finally replies, a quiet: “Maybe I would,” with less uncertainty hiding.

Ultimately, they settle for what’s more like a half-shower: lazy soaping up, squeezing the excess water out of hair. For the most part, too, silence had fallen over, with the exception of John asking for his conditioner when he can’t reach for it. It leaves a lingering, faintly sweet smell along the slightest pull of tension that curls around them as John works it into his hair. Definitely, better in concept. It isn’t until after John steps out of the shower, wrapping a towel around the narrow part of his waist above his hips, that he looks at Lafayette curiously. As cuts the water, John hands him a towel, saying: “I didn’t mean to. weird you out or anything, you know.”

“I know,” he says. “I know.”

For all his trying, his tone still comes off a foot of hesitation. As if he’d needed to consider it. He can feel John watching him as he steps out of the shower and as he touches the small of John’s back to make past him, to make back to his room. John catches him by the wrist, frowning.

“Hey,” he says. “Hey,” and his hand squeezes around his wrist.

“You didn’t make it weird,” he says, more convincing.

He uses the hand around his wrist to pull John. Pull him to follow and make back to his room and leave a trail of barely-wet footprints down the hall. John’s fingertips press against the still-damp skin of his back and the smile pulls back. And as John picks up a half-step and kisses his shoulder as he stops by the bed, where his suitcases lay partly unpacked.

John stands on his toes to kiss his neck. “I left my clothes in the bathroom,” and starts to leave.

Lafayette turns to hold his sides with both hands, palms pressing in, fingers curling into the edge of the towel folded over to hold it up. In his pause, John’s expression pulls with slight confusion, but fades into a smile as Lafayette presses closer, and he brings his hands back, resting on his shoulder and the back of his neck, touching the edge of his jaw. He matches John’s smile with one of his own, one that is soft and fond and steadfast even as John presses the pad of his thumb against the corner of his mouth. He kisses it.

“Get your clothes later,” he tells him, pulls him by the towel. Uses it as a better way to start him back to bed. John laughs, a happy sound that widens his smile, and he keeps his hands to make his own leverage, urge him along down as he sits. Lafayette meets him halfway, composing his smile enough to kiss, kiss him. Kiss him down into the mattress and the pillows and draw all the blankets around them. The fervor fades, falls to gentle and sweet and slow and he stops, just barely, still lets lips brush. Kiss the faint remainder of his smile, trail to find his neck. “This okay?” he whispers, “Still okay?”

“Mhm,” John says, nodding, “yeah, yes, of course,” as he presses back up, supported by an elbow. “Come on, come here,” he urges him back with the hand he kept at the point of his jaw. The other keeps pressed into his shoulder, his nails just biting into skin as he shifts to help Lafayette unravel the fold in his towel and pull it from under his hips. As he drops it to the floor, Lafayette holds onto him by the soft, unworked muscle of his sides above his hips. One hand above his shoulder, palm and fingers curled against the pillow.

John is content to just lean, press up and kiss him, half-tangled in the blankets, until Lafayette forgets that time is passing at all. They lack the pressing urgency that had come with drunk, lust and fever, taking slow and easy time. Lafayette sheds his own towel. In the pause, parted away from each other, John covers his face with one arm, curled to hide in the crook of his elbow. He catches his breath and Lafayette kisses the bloom of a blush reddening his face.

And it stays, only darkening when he presses closer, slow and easy and edging into territory unfamiliar as it still lacks all drunk, lust and fever. Middle of the night versus middle of the day, with the sun bleeding through the blinds as the clouds start to give way. He presses chaste kisses to his mouth, his red cheeks, his jaw. John shifts his arms to hold around him, not clinging but tight, still allowing the hand he has kept between them. Moves his face from his elbow into Lafayette’s neck, where his shaky breath pools hot against his skin.

Lafayette helps his legs, moves them to where they’re comfortable and holds him there by the undersides of his thighs. John presses a few kisses against his neck, pausing at his rapid pulse point, before he shudders and breathes heavy, tilts his head back until it evens. Lafayette moves his palms to hold John’s hips, to keep him there, wait until his breath evens before he eases into moving.

\---

They’re kissing in the afterglow, hands taking to trace and relearn planes of bare skin, when John pushes him off, away, onto his side, so he can ease his legs straight again, roll onto his stomach. Lafayette traces the tips of his fingers over the divot of his spine between the muscles of his back, loosened with the release of tension.

“You good?” he asks, watching as John’s back rises with his inhale and he can hear it stutter out, even as he hides his face in the pillows. He hears what might be a muffled _uh-huh_ , but isn’t sure. “Hey,” he says, voice going soft as he shifts closer. Slight tick of worry, rising as he shifts to prop up, angled on his elbow. John takes another one of those deep breaths, his ribcage expanding with it under his hand, before he turns his head.

His face is hidden by his hair, but Lafayette knows the telltale of his smile, however small. The slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes and the dimple on one cheek, just next to the hollow of his cheekbone. The faintness of his flush remains. Lafayette warms over the trepidation, fond and enamored swelling to surpass it, as he brings his hand up to move the mass of curls away from his face.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’m good.” John turns his head into his hand, allowing his smile to widen and break just enough to show teeth. His breath has the ghost of a laugh as he turns onto his side; Lafayette is content to just look at him, tracing the curves of his expression with his gaze and settling on his eyes. They seem lighter with the little bubble of laughter, brighter, flecks of green and gold brightening in the natural light. John’s smile flattens faintly as his first two fingers press into a tender spot on Lafayette’s neck. “Sorry,” he says, easing the pressure on the mark he’d left.

“It’s okay,” he whispers back. Takes his thumb down his cheek, along his dimple and the laugh line drawn from the edge of his nose towards the corner of his mouth. He knows him, knows his face and its anatomy, has it committed to his memory and could trace it in his sleep.

John hums. A nothing noise. “Mm. Yeah. Still. Don’t we have that thing, tonight? Herc’s thing, or whatever?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

He laughs again, fuller this time, but muffles the noise with the back of his hand. Lafayette moves it away, holds it in his own. His smile stays, curling even as his teeth bite into his lip. An attempt to quell it, maybe. He kisses John’s palm.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll wear a scarf.”

“Oh, my god,” he snorts, rolls his eyes without malice, instead playful. “You’re ridiculous.”

Laf kisses his smile. “You wouldn’t have me any way else,” and knows that he isn’t wrong.

It’s the day before the day before classes, which means that, obviously, they have to do something. Something that involves leaving the blissful confines of the nest and make through the icy city streets for Hercules’ apartment. His roommate should have moved out by now, but that doesn’t mean that it’ll be anything more than a small gathering. It still leaves room for uncertain ground, leaves them in their awkward place of being an item, or not. Showing up as a thing, or not. It’s conversation they have yet to breach, left for later a bit too long.  

That sinking, twisting feeling inches its way from the depths, remaking its presence known. Acid taste in the back of his mouth, voice tightening and weak on the first try, better as he clears his throat as if to stifle a cough. “Do you still want to go?”

John twists his lips. Considers. “I mean, yeah.”

“You sure?”

“God. Gil, yes. I’m sure. Promise.”

“Okay, okay.”

The flicker of annoyance fizzles within the moment. “So.” John sets his fingers on his collarbone. “Which scarf are you thinking. I’ll match you,” he says.

Lafayette eases back into his own smile. It takes a bit of force, for it to just come back before he lets it fully take control of his expression. Their half-week has gone without hitch, so far, but – still. Lafayette can’t help but to feel that they are standing on the edge of something, starting towards the pull of a drain, because it’s only lasted so long, before. Even as John’s smile returns, and even in the wake of days nestled safely in bed.

“I’ll have to look,” he says, plays along. The dread-heavy, unhappy feeling fades as John directs his chin with the knuckles of his first two fingers, pulling his gaze. Looking at him with those smile-brightened eyes.

Hours later, separate showers later, finally getting dressed later, looking turns into picking through his suitcases and coming to the final conclusion that he must have left his scarf in France. John’s already dressed and ready, sitting in a flannel he’d stolen from Lafayette’s closet (and it’s huge on him, he has to roll the cuffs twice over for the sleeves to fit right), and his ripped up jeans and is being not helpful at all.

“Are you going to help me, or just sit there?” he asks as he turns away from his opened suitcase.

“Babe, like I own a scarf,” he says. Comes over to help anyway. “Winter doesn’t exist,” he says, matter-of-fact. Pulls at the collar of his t-shirt in an attempt to arrange it in way that covers. The mark is little, faint as the initial irritation has faded back into his skin tone. John presses against it with one fingertip. “You own a turtleneck?” He pauses, sucks his lower lip into his mouth as he considers something, brows turned down, together in thought. “Is it that big a deal?” he asks.

“Is it?” Lafayette, maybe smartly, keeps the ball in his court. It doesn’t mean that he waits without caught breath, waiting on his answer. It does all feel a bit silly.

“I mean – like, Peggy knows,” John goes sheepish and takes restless hands to smooth the wrinkles of his shirt. He retracts, maybe nervous, and chews on his thumbnail. Definitely nervous. “I lied. I told you she didn’t but she does, I’m sorry. Sorry. I should have, told you, that she knows, the girls know. Her and Eliza, they both – ”

Before he can get himself worked up, Lafayette places careful hands on him. One at his side, the other taking his hand away from his mouth. “It’s okay,” he assures. “I thought that. I thought that maybe she did.”

“Is it okay?”

“Yeah. Yes.” He eases a smile, tries to urge one out of John. He doesn’t exactly smile, only seems to frown less as he comes closer to hug him. “She would have found out eventually, yeah?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, I guess she. she would have.”

“You guess?” It feels like crossing a boundary, like he may have just crushed one of the eggshells they’ve been walking, treading lightly, on.

“I. I mean, I mean,” John stammers. “Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she would,” like he’s still not sure. Lafayette breathes out an almost-sigh, rubs his hand in a slow circle over the panes of his back. “She would,” he tries again, more insistent, head tipped up to show a smile and smooth it over. “Now, c’mon. We gotta go. We’re already late.”

“Okay, okay. Go get your coat,” he urges him by the arm. John zippers the hoodie he’s wearing under Lafayette’s flannel before he goes to get their coats. Lafayette finds his sweatshirt, pulls it on, adjusts the fold of the hood over the curve where his neck meets shoulder. He pulls his hair back and secures it with the tie that he’d borrowed from John.

“Gil, hey, we gotta go,” John calls for him from the living room, impatient. Goes as far as to bring his coat from the closet for him. “I called a lyft, they’ll be here in a few,” he passes the jacket over, smile steadfast. It assures Lafayette, at the very least. Quells that prickle of anticipation that hosts itself beneath his skin, pushes it down and repockets it. He smiles back.

“Okay, we gotta go,” he says, offering his hand after buttoning his coat.

It’s an uneventful ride over to Herc’s apartment. The usual, slightly dizzying traffic as they pass through intersections and around slower cars and jay walking pedestrians trying their luck in crossing traffic, shuffling through slush and uncleared ice to the sidewalk. They join them after the car lets them out at the corner across from the apartment building. John pulls him by the hand. John’s feels small and cold in his own and he squeezes it as they step between parked cars onto the sidewalk. And pulls it when John goes to press the intercom button for Hercules to let them in.

He pulls his lanyard from his coat pocket to find the silver key that Hercules had loaned him before he left for home.

“You have a key?” John stares at him, his brows coming together, his gazer flickering only briefly towards the little piece of metal. The expression that pulls strikes him, presses between his ribs to get at his heart. John looks the same way he had when he’d walked in on Lafayette packing and, it’s enough for him to pause, halfway to fitting the key into the lock.

It’s enough for him to stutter, “I – I, yes. I do. Hercules gave me a key when. when I was staying with him,” Lafayette clears his throat and turns the lock. As he pulls the door: “I’ll give it back, tonight,” and squeezes his hand again.

John stays staring, watches as the key swings back against the others, jingling into place. Lafayette has to pull him to come along, and he stumbles over the door’s threshold. Curls his fist into the fabric of his coat and he yanks, pulls hard enough to make him stop.

“You promise?”

“What?”

“Do you promise. That you’ll give it back.”

“Yeah. Yes, John. I will. Promise.”

He holds his gaze for just a bit longer, looking for a lie. Satisfied, or at least put at bay, John lets his coat go, lets him take up the stairs. They’re already late. Maybe anxious, John quickens his step and beats Lafayette to the door, still holding his hand as he knocks. Like, maybe he doesn’t want him to use the key again. The pulse of Herc’s music comes soft through the wood – just the slight noise of an ambient drum, electronic beats – but he isn’t the one to answer the door.

It’s Eliza, with her hair cut short and a glass of wine that she’s halfway into setting on the table where Hercules leaves his keys. Her whole face lights up upon seeing them – “John!” as she rushes to hug him, arms thrown over his shoulders as she pulls him halfway into the door. She’s flushed with the wine, laughing still as she pulls back with her palms held to either of John’s cheeks. “Hello, hello. How are you, love? You look – ” as her gaze passes to Lafayette, she drops the thought: “Gil!” and she moves to give him an equally enthusiastic, full bodied hug.

“Come in, come in,” she ushers them both into the kitchen and closes the door behind them. “We have, we have – ” Eliza gestures with one hand, playing hostess in Herc’s place, cuts herself short as she looks between them. “Wait,” she looks between them. A happy gasp. She drops her voice to a whisper and comes forward, holds John by both his forearms. “Wait, are you,” her smile breaks wide and she laughs out of her excitement. Without confirmation, “Oh, John, I’m so happy,” and she turns her grin to Lafayette before hugging John again.

“Hey, hey,” he says, his own smile filling in, brightening his whole face, and Lafayette’s can’t help but to return with it. “Hey,” as he retracts just enough to hold her by her sides. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, and _you,_ ” as she points to Lafayette with both hands. “Gil, gosh,” she abandons John for him. “I missed you, and you didn’t even say goodbye before going,” she goes stern, but only for a moment before reaching to hug him again.

“Eliza,” John says.

“Hm?” over Lafayette’s shoulder. Her tone matches the confusion that draws itself over his expression. She looks from John, then to Lafayette, and she pulls back. “Oh. Oh no. Oh, am I wrong,” she backpedals, goes back for her wine to recover. “John?”

“No, no, you’re. Yeah, we’re. I mean.”

Lafayette watches him rake one hand through his hair. “We, we made up,” he supplies, like it could be the right answer. Rubs his palm into his shoulder to soothe. Smiling still.  

Eliza smiles around the curve of her glass, but allows for a pause to finish the last of her wine, as the boys hang up their coats. She waits before taking them both across the kitchen, to the fridge.

“The others are on the fire escape,” she tells them. “Do you want wine? I think he – ” she pokes her head into the fridge. “Beer? We have a few bottles,” she says as she pulls the wine out.

They agree on the wine, and she pours them each a glass before topping off her own, and they sit at the kitchen table, in its mismatched chairs. John pulls his chair at an angle, sits at the corner, closer to Lafayette without being obvious about it. Lafayette holds his glass and holds John’s knee under the table. Though still a bit on edge, it feels easy, comfortable. He squeezes his knee.

“So. So?” she leans forward on both elbows, glass held between her palms. She drums her fingers against it.

“So, we just,” John shrugs, and looks at Lafayette.

“You just,” she gestures with one hand. “That easy?”

“We’re still. You know.”

“Figuring it out?”

“Yeah.”

Eliza smiles between them. “I’m glad that you’re happy,” she says. “Right?”

She’s looking at John when she says it, and Lafayette turns his gaze to him, too. And despite the half-week they spent, he finds his breath caught in his throat, waiting for John’s smile, waiting for him to nod. He goes pink, but does smile, nods, and busies himself with his wine as she coos at him, teasing him over it.

“Eli _za,”_ he complains at her. When Lafayette laughs, John looks at him, scandalized. He laughs harder and pulls him over by the chair, pulls it flush to his own; it screeches against the linoleum and John’s expression turns to a cringe. Lafayette murmurs his apology and curls his hand back around John’s thigh, keeps him where he is, and takes a sip from his wine.

“Oh, my god, you guys,” Eliza gets halfway through her sentence before Peggy calls for her from the living room, her voice still a bit far off, Alexander chiming in on the second syllable, Hercules shushing them loudly as the noise of them clambering back through the window sounds through. John’s hand drops to cover the one of Lafayette’s that holds his leg. He squeezes his fingers around the back of his hand. The way that John visibly tenses rejuvenates his worry.

“Kitchen!” Eliza answers the calls as the window closes, its lock clicking into place. As footsteps take towards them and John’s hand holds a little bit tighter.

As Eliza turns to watch the pass between the kitchen and the living area, Lafayette leans closer to him. If he could, he would stretch his arm over the back of John’s chair, lean his weight onto it, touch his shoulder. Instead, he rubs his thumb against one of the tears through his jeans, brushing over his skin. “You okay?” he asks, tipping his head to murmur in his ear.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, and touches his jaw to urge him back, a little, before they come through the pass. John busies both hands with his wine, again.  

“Hey, slow down,” Lafayette helps the glass away from his mouth. “We’ve got the entire night ahead of us,” he says.

“Entire night, yeah,” as the glass comes down.


End file.
